dreams, like soap bubbles
by broomclosetkink
Summary: Molly Hooper has always loved Sherlock Holmes, despite the reality never quite matching up to the beauty of wishes and dreams. Sherlolly, major HLV spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **My utmost thanks to MizJoely and just-mindy for looking this beast over and sharing their expertise with me. If you saw what my first drafts looked like, you wouldn't believe I even know how to speak the English language. Meanwhile, this fic I'm dedicating to dietplainlite (a brilliant author in her own right, believe me), simply because she's always been such a marvelously dear friend and I adore her beyond all sense and logic.

**Disclaimer:** I own terribly little, and Sherlock & Co not included in that count. I do, however, possess three very hairy Shih Tzu's that are spoiled beyond belief and are at this moment vying for mommy's attention. Does that count for anything?

**I**

Molly's key to 221B Baker Street is scratched, nicked, and discolored from an almost too close encounter with a corrosive substance. It's well worn and well used, and rests on a key ring with four other bedfellows, despite the fact that those keys are to Sherlock's old flats and she hasn't got a single use for them. They've become keepsakes at this point, little bits of Sherlock to keep in her pocket.

"Hello," she calls out once she's halfway up the staircase and trying to shove the keyring back in her tote bag. The large cooler she carries in one hand keeps bumping into the side of her leg, painfully so, but she bravely soldiers on. A bit of pain to bring happiness to Sherlock isn't much of a sacrifice, now is it? "Sherlock, if you're wearing a sheet, go put on some pants, you know how uncomfortable it makes me when you –"

There's a woman standing in Sherlock's lounge, wearing his blue dressing gown and nothing else. No, not _just_ 'a woman', which would imply that it's someone random – this is _the Maid of Honor_. Janine. Janine the Maid of Honor stands in Sherlock's lounge wearing his second best blue dressing gown, heaving breasts on display, looking terribly shocked to see Molly.

"Um, hello," says Janine, with an awkward little laugh. She's eying Molly up and down, taking in the oversized jumper and leggings and comfortable boots. "Can I help you?"

Molly is having a terribly difficult time breathing. "Oh, it's – I'm Sherlock's – I brought him the liver and hands of a forty year-old woman." Thrusting the cooler forward, Molly immediately hates herself. Oh yes, bloody brilliant thing to say, Molly. Make yourself sound incredibly weird to this – this woman wearing – this _can't_ be what it looks like. Can it?

"Oh, um, that's... nice?" Janine doesn't appear to impressed. Actually, she shrinks back a bit and seems wholly disgusted.

_Honestly_, Molly wants to snap, _they're body parts, not a contagion. _

Sherlock appears from the hall looking ruffled, startled, and a tad bit guilty.

"A liver!" Molly almost, but not quite, shouts. "And hands! She was a smoker, forty years old, hit by a car. Donated, of course, and I thought you might need some cheering up so I – here you go – I'll be on my way, sorry I intruded. You might, um, want to close the door. In case Mrs. Hudson steps out. Wouldn't want her to see, um... see..."

Tears. Oh, _bloody fantastic_, she's crying.

"Molly, wait a moment, please." Sherlock's reaching out, stepping forward. "May we speak? Privately?"

"Got to dash," she chokes out, smiling as best she can. Probably looks like she's having a stroke, but it's the only way she can think to attempt and save face. "Got dinner with Tom. You remember Tom, don't you? My fiancé? He's waiting at the – the restaurant. Yes. Goodbye!"

"Nice meeting you," Janine calls after Molly.

She's never loathed someone quite as intensely as she does _Janine._

**II**

Half-four in the morning, Molly wakes up to a dark figure standing over her bed. A hand is clamped over her mouth and so her scream is a stunted thing, dying quickly, but she's flailing and kicking – there's a body on top of her now, heavy and warm. Breath rustles past her cheek and across ear, and then a voice comes. "Be still," Sherlock orders, wedging her knees apart with his own. "It's only me."

For what seems to be hours, Molly focuses on not having a heart attack. She's going to _kill_ Sherlock – it's bad enough he's taken over her spare bedroom, does he really need to be sneaking into her bedroom in the middle of the night?

"What are you _doing_?" she hisses, once Sherlock has removed his hand. As panic and sleep clear from her mind, Molly realizes how terribly... _terrible_ their position is. Sherlock rests between her bare legs, the fabric of his slacks slick and smooth.. (_God, I haven't shaved in a week_, she mourns, before furiously shutting that train of thought down.) He's lucky Tom didn't sleep over, it'd be incredibly awkward for her fiancé to wake up and find her all tangled up with another man.

Another man Tom quite dislikes, and thinks Molly is still pining over. Which she _isn't_. She's over Sherlock Holmes. Now they're friends, only friends, friends forever. Because Sherlock doesn't do relationships and women... or at least, he doesn't dorelationships and _Molly Hooper_.

"Waking you up, that _should_ be obvious." Oh, he's teasing, trying to divert attention from what happened yesterday evening.

Molly grabs his nipple through the fabric of his shirt (where did the suit jacket go? He rarely takes it off if he's not working in the lab or in his flat), and twists so hard that Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, squeals like a little girl and kicks his feet. "_Molly Hooper!_" he shrieks, wriggling in all sorts of fun and interesting ways while trying to bat her hand away. "Release my nipple this instance!"

"You _woke me up_," she hisses, taking hold of the other one. Sherlock flops miserably, making noises in an octave she hadn't known he could reach. "You are a complete – you're an _arse_, Sherlock Holmes! Now _get out of my bed_!" She shoves, and Sherlock rolls... the wrong way. Instead of dropping to the floor and (hopefully) knocking himself unconscious, he lands on the opposite side of the bed.

"_Ow,_" he whimpers, palms gingerly covering the abused areas of his chest. The streetlight outside throws a portion of his face into relief, and Molly can see the way his brow is drawn, and how his mouth pulls into a lush pout.

_It's not at all attractive,_ she insists.

_That's so bloody attractive. _Her genitals are really terrible at lying, Molly's discovers.

"My God, I believe you've detached my left nipple."

"You deserve it!"

"For having another woman in my flat?"

Molly sputters indignantly. Not because he's wrong – he's absolutely right – but because he's _calling_ her on the truth. "Why – why would I care? I _don't_ care. I'm engaged, Sherlock. Happily. Blissfully. I don't care if you're – you're shagging some – some random woman you met a week ago. Not any of my business, is it? Now get out of my bed, get out of my flat, and _leave me alone!_" She rolls on her side, curling into a tight ball.

Tears burn her eyes, turning the shadowy view of her nightstand and the room beyond into nothing more than a blurred mess. It's too much to hope that Sherlock won't notice, but she can at least pray he'll be kind enough to keep his mouth shut about it.

The mattress shifts with Sherlock's weight as he moves, but it isn't to get up. Slowly he presses himself against Molly, until she is enveloped. He pushes an arm under her shoulders and curls it around, fingers clasping her opposite shoulder; his other arm is around her stomach, gripping her hip; Sherlock's legs wind with Molly's own; at the end of it all, there is no telling where Sherlock Holmes ends and Molly Hooper begins.

The crack in Molly's heart only grows.

"I am so truly sorry, Molly," whispers Sherlock, his mouth pressed behind her ear. His voice is thick with emotion, though what those emotions may be Molly cannot say. "I never wanted you to know about Janine."

"Trying to be kind to the lovesick moron in case you need to fake your death again?" Acid would be less damaging than Molly's tone. If her arms weren't half-pinned, she'd elbow Sherlock in the gut and escape his grasp. As it is she's trapped, unable to move. (And maybe, not so secretly, a bit happy to be there. Little moments like this can fuel a thousand fantasies, ones she thinks will still be held near and dear to heart even when she's old and gray and long married to someone else.)

"Is that truly what you think of me?"

"Honestly, Sherlock, I don't know what I think anymore. Not that it matters – you've got _Janine_. I've got Tom. I'm really very happy for you, but I don't think your girlfriend would like you being in bed with another woman. I know Tom would be furious."

"Does it seem like me? To have a woman staying with me? To have a... _girlfriend_?"

Biting at the inside of her cheek, Molly takes a moment to mull Sherlock's words over. "No," she admits, and then speaking isn't at all an option, because Sherlock has buried his nose in the nape of her neck and his mouth is pressing against the bare skin there, wet and hot.

"Not everything is as it seems," he murmurs. His fingers move, pulling up the oversized shirt she sleeps in, finding the flesh of Molly's hip. "Whatever you see, whatever it seems to be, it's not true. If I were to initiate a relationship with someone, it would certainly not be Janine."

Swallowing is difficult, Molly's throat has gone dry. Her blood is pumping so hard her jugular vein aches from the force of it. "Oh?" she breathes, trying to control her body and failing entirely. "Not your type, then?"

"No," he confirms. "Not at all."

_Do not ask_, Molly firmly demands of herself.

"If not Janine, then what is? Your type, I mean."

_Fuck_, Molly mourns, mentally dashing her head against a wall. She's setting herself up for disaster here, flirting with Sherlock while in bed and he's touching her and – Jesus. _Jesus. _She can feel him smiling against her neck.

"You know the answer to that better than anyone else." His words are slow and pained, as though Sherlock has to drag them out of some dark pit he tries to avoid at all costs. Molly's heart spasms in fearful hope, breath caught somewhere above her ribs and below her throat.

Slowly she moves a hand down, carefully pressing against Sherlock's fingertips and then each joint in succession. Against her neck his breath is a trembling rush and his body grows tense, as though this simple touch has undone him as much as it has Molly. Wary of spooking him, of breaking whatever spell he seems to be under, Molly slats her fingers in the spaces between Sherlock's own.

His reaction is immediate and grateful; he clasps her hand tightly, as though Molly is the lifeline he's been searching for his entire life.

He spends the night. They sleep tangled together, and Sherlock makes tea and toast for breakfast. Together they shrug on coats and ready to leave and start the day; in front of the door Sherlock hovers over Molly, hand around her wrist and a sad smile at his lips. How lonely the look in his eyes seems, as though he's standing outside a window and looking in at what he'll never have.

He kisses the corner of her mouth, and Molly steps into him without thinking.

"Have a good day," he says, and then he's gone, slipping through the half open door to disappear.

**III**

Janine brings Sherlock food while he's at the lab.

"It's Chinese!" she announces, the take away in two plastic bags that smell positively heavenly. "I thought you'd be hungry by now, Sherly."

Molly chokes on her coffee. "Did you just call him _Sherly_?"

For the first time since arriving, Janine pays Molly attention. Possibly because it sounds like Molly is dying, given she's hacking and gurgling on hot coffee that went down the wrong pipe. Of _course_, here she goes again, making a fool of herself in front of Sherlock's not-girlfriend.

"Pet name," Janine pretends to whisper, winking at Molly as she sits the take away bags on Sherlock's table. "I brought enough for three if you're hungry – um, Molly, right? Sherlock's mentioned you several times."

"She is the most capable and knowledgeable pathologist in the whole of the country." Sherlock gives this announcement while grudgingly backing away form his microscope. He smiles, but it's as flat as a doll's: it contains no emotion or pleasure, only forced charm. "You're so thoughtful, Janine."

She kisses Sherlock.

Molly's jaw is clenched so tightly it's close to breaking. The pop of her gloves coming off, practically tearing with the force she uses to remove them, prompts Sherlock to break away. "Thanks for the offer, Janine, but I've got some postmortems to do. By the way, you do know Sherlock doesn't eat while he's on cases, don't you?" Maybe the last part is too sharp... maybe Molly doesn't care.

"He does for me," Janine croons. "Don't you, Sherly?"

While his not-girlfriend unpacks the food, Sherlock's gaze bores through Molly. It's almost a physical touch on her back as she pushes the lab doors open, heading for the sanctuary of the morgue.

"_He does for me_," she mocks, rolling her eyes vicariously. "Sherly. _Sherly! _If he's not with her for a case, so help me God I'm testing him... he'd have to be back on drugs..."

**IV**

This is the beginning of the end.

"Was that Sherlock I saw leaving?" asks Tom, dropping his keys onto the wall hook by the door.

Surrounded by piles of soft, fluffy towels and flannels and socks and dish towels, Molly is folding laundry. In the little utility room the washer is banging around, sounding like it may up and walk away at any moment, or maybe even catch on fire. "Hmm? Oh, Sherlock, yeah. He was hungry."

"Oh. Well then." Tom's voice has gone all funny, taut and a bit too high. It pulls Molly from her thoughts, which are circling around Sherlock and the way he brushed his hand across her cheek before he left. "Yeah, so, he's hungry and pops over to your place and you feed him?"

"Made lasagna," Molly agrees, gesturing towards the kitchen. "There's garlic bread in there, as well. Homemade."

"All right, Molly – this has gone on long enough, don't you think? We're getting married, and you're making meals for another a man! A man that has a key to your place!"

"He's my friend, Tom. I know he's a bit hard to get used to, but –"

"Know what he said to me last week? He said I'm far too _stupid_ to deserve a woman like you." Tom's chest his heaving and his hands are balled into fists; his lean body vibrates with badly contained fury. Molly looks at him – really _looks _– and feels something inside her shrivel up.

Still, she tries. (Moving on isn't easy, she knows this; but once they're married, once it's all done and legal, well... surely she'll feel differently...) "I'm sorry, sweetheart. He's very protective over his friends. But I'll have a talk with him, all right?"

"No. I want to marry you, Molly. I want to have children with you, grow old with you, and when I die, I want to buried beside you. But a relationship is a two-way street, and we can't have Sherlock Holmes popping in for meals, or demanding you run off and look at a body at two in the morning. Once we're married and have kids, it won't even been an option. So you've got to choose, Molly: him or me."

"Oh, Tom..." sighs Molly, a towel falling from her hands. She covers her mouth and tries hard not to cry, because in the end, there _is _no choice.

**IV**

Molly announces her presence by hurling a shoe at Sherlock. It lands in the fireplace, which is thankfully unlit.

Perhaps now is the time to mention she's a little bit drunk.

"Molly?" It's a truly rare occasion when Sherlock looks baffled, but he does now. Up and down his gaze moves, taking in every bit of Molly's appearance; what secrets does he find this time?

"You son of a _bitch_," she hisses, struggling to get the other shoe off. Unfortunately balance is not her strong suit, especially when down almost an entire bottle of wine. "You just wait 'til I get my shoe – I'm going to make you regret this –"

Not bothering to hide his amusement, Sherlock inquires, "And what, precisely, am I regretting?"

"_Tom!_" Molly shouts, flinging the second shoe. It bounces off the wall and flies into the kitchen. It leaves her without a weapon, and so she settles for glaring. "It's all your bloody fault, you stupid _berk_. We've fought and he's angry, and you're to blame, Sherlock Holmes! It's _all_ because of _you!_"

Within seconds storm clouds roll over Sherlock's face, morphing his angelic features into something dark and demonic. "What happened, Molly?" he demands, moving from his chair as a jaguar hunting weakened prey might leave the cover of the jungle. "Are you injured? No, no; emotional wounds, obviously. Stay here, sleep it off; _I _shall deal with... _Tom._" he says her possibly ex-fiancé's name the way another man might say _cockroach. _

"Didn't you hear me? It's _your_ fault, so I don't need you sticking your bloody nose into it now!" God, it's not _fair_. He's being protective of her, and it's... it's just _horrid. _Not because he is kind or obviously enraged at the thought of Tom causing her any sort of pain, but because it makes Molly want to hold him. To kiss him, to pull him down in front of the fireplace and show him exactly how okay she is with probably, almost certainly losing Tom.

"Perhaps you should explain to me how this is my doing?" Carefully he speaks, moving close. Too close. Sherlock never used to be one for invading Molly's personal space or touching, but now... since his return he's always a bit too close. He's ran his fingers through her hair when she's distracted, pulling gently at her ponytail; he's slept with his head in her lap on the sofa while watching telly; he often slept _in her bed_; the list goes on and on. Now is no different, and Molly can't stand it. She wants to smack him, to push him away, to leave Baker Street and never see him again.

So she does the exact opposite of all these things and kisses him. It involves yanking him down by his shirt front and standing on her toes, but then her mouth is on his and she pours every bit of her frustration, confusion, heartache, and fury into this kiss. She wants to shock him, to hurt him, maybe drive him away – but he _groans_ and takes her by the hips, pulls her up higher and _kisses her back. _There's no hesitation, no thought; only his teeth on her upper lip, his tongue exploring areas previous undiscovered, and the way his breath flows into Molly.

And she is lost.

Lust hits her so hard it's like being struck by lightning, a bolt out of a clear sky that sets her hair on fire and evaporates her blood. God, oh _God_, her feet are off the ground, legs wrapping around those slender hips; and he's holding her up by the bum and staggering across the lounge, positively devouring Molly as he goes; but now they're falling back, and she's trapped under him on the couch.

"Feels so good," he's murmuring into the soft flesh under her jaw, one hand pushing up her jumper to find her bare stomach and the bra she isn't wearing. The sound he makes – it's _hungry_, and _male_, and Molly wants to wrap herself in it. "Better than anything else. Perfect, knew you'd be perfect for –" his words are cut off when his mouth finds her breast, while Molly cries out.

She throbs with want. Her hands scrabble at his shirt, tugging and pulling and not bothering with buttons, simply shoving her hands under it. Digging her fingers into his flesh, Molly tries to touch him everywhere, all at once. Her need for him is overwhelming, so violent that she wants to be absorbed into him, and it's terrifying. But his mouth is wet and hot, and he's biting her nipple just _so_, and the pain is so goddamn good that Molly can't help but lift her hips and whine – in all of this, there is no room for the fear of being overwhelmed and overtaken to grow.

Sherlock's breathing like a winded race horse and attacking her blue jeans as though they've given him a personal offense. It take a goodly amount of wiggling (which makes Sherlock curse and thrust into her, biting her neck in retaliation, which Molly fucking _loves_) to get a leg free, but she does. They're pushed down, down to the ankle of the opposite leg, where the denim scrunches up and refuses to move any further. That's all right, though, as Sherlock's hand is between her legs.

"I want to watch you," he says, and strokes her open with two fingers.

His words provoke a flush of heat to rush over Molly, her cunt pulsing so strongly a flood of new wetness escapes. She can't hold still when he finds her clit and begins to play it, hissing and moaning and clawing at the sofa cushions. It's all happening so quickly, she's still hazy from the wine, and yet she's never been more aroused in her life. Especially with Sherlock propped over her, watching (_he likes watching me_, Molly realizes, and nearly bites through her cheek in an attempt to stifle an embarrassingly loud moan), pupils blown wide while he plays her as he would his violin.

There's no warning before he pushes a finger inside, and Molly arches off the coach with a loud cry.

Sherlock's gasping for air. "Fuck, oh fuck," he keeps repeating, a fierce expression in his heavy-lidded gaze. "You're so wet, Molly. You want me to fuck you, don't you? You need me inside, right _here_ –"

Molly keens, pressing her hips hard against his hand.

"Say it," Sherlock orders, head dropping to press a kiss between her breasts. He lingers there, breathing in the scent of her soap and skin and sweat. "Tell me you want me."

"Want you," she complies, hands already fumbling and struggling with his belt. "I need you. Oh God, Sherlock, please fuck me – I need you so much, I need –"

He growls like an animal, and suddenly Molly is empty. She cries out at the loss, tugs at his hair and pulls his mouth to hers. Blindly one hand finds his trousers, feels his own waging war against his zip, and helps push the expensive fabric down once they're opened. They don't go down far, just barely get down to the top of his thighs, because his cock is free and Molly immediately takes hold of him. He's fat and larger than average, and Molly feels as though her bones are liquefying with how desperatelyshe wants to feel him inside her.

For the first time in her life, Molly Hooper has unprotected sex. It's a thought in the back of her mind, a faint cry of common sense that flails its hands and shrieks in horror, but she's rubbing his cockhead along her cunt, and Molly hasn't got the patience to be sensible. Not now, not when Sherlock is _this close_, breathing heavily into her mouth and pressing his hips hard into her hand, against her pussy –

She guides him inside, and Sherlock thrusts home with a ragged cry. He trembles from head to toe, drops a foot to the floor for leverage and immediately proceeds to fuck Molly harder than she has _ever_ been fucked before. All she can do is cling to him, hands fisted in his shirt as she sobs and wails and babbles ("Love you, love your fucking cock; feels so goddamn good, oh God, oh God, it's so good, you're so fucking good –"). She's overwhelmed by sex; the scent, the sounds, the indescribable feeling of fullness and friction and painful sort of pleasure when he goes deep enough to hit her cervix.

Like everything else that's happened, her orgasm is sudden, violent, and mind blowing. Distantly she can hear a thin shriek, while beyond it is Sherlock's voice – "Yes, yes, yes; Molly, yes, like that, just like that – you're so beautiful, perfect, I knew you'd be _perfect_..." – but it's all so far away, as though hearing a TV from another room. Everything is fire and darkness, an explosion behind her eyes and the feeling of being completely torn apart and pressed back together in a matter of seconds.

The highest point of orgasm passes, and Molly is left throbbing, limp, twitching, and on the edge of tears. Sherlock has her hips in a vice grip, and yes it hurts, but she _loves_ it. He's thrusting into her sharp and hard, and it's so good; so she curls her legs up high around him, locks them behind his back and lifts her hips. Like a rising tide the pressure comes again; not so fierce or so hard, but there all the same.

Gripping the armrest behind her head, Molly strains towards release once more. Sherlock is watching her, hair falling in his eyes and mouth dropped open; he looks beautiful and erotic and she's going to remember him like this for the rest of her life. But then he's released one of her hips and spread his hand over her lower stomach, pressing down, his thumb stretched down to her clit and she _can't_ keep her eyes open. It's hard enough to breathe, much less focus on anything aside from the pleasure, and Sherlock – oh, Sherlock –

"Did _Tom_ make you feel like this?"

Molly's eyes snap open at this question, this forbidden topic, and she finds Sherlock has leaned further back. It gives him more range of motion, and they both benefit from it. She's making the most horrific squealing noise – God, it must grate Sherlock's nerves to no end – but she can't stop because there's this place deep inside, and Sherlock's pressing down on her stomach and his cock is rubbing just _there_ with each thrust, and oh fuck she can't – she can't –

"Did he?" Sherlock demands. "Did he do this to you? Did you want him as much as you want me?"

"No!" One hand releases the arm rest, lifting to take a tight grip on Sherlock's shirt front. The seams groan under the strain, but Molly doesn't have enough mental resources to care if she rips it. "Never did this to me – never wanted him like this – I'd close my eyes and think about you, about you fucking me, your mouth on my cunt –"

This orgasm is, much to Molly's shock, even harder than the one before. It feels as though her muscles will tear off her bones with how taut she becomes. Sherlock can barely move from how tightly her cunt grips him; it's like a bomb going off, but Molly _is_ the bomb, fracturing and flying apart.

Tendons standing out in relief and heavily flushed, Sherlock practically roars. He's pulling her up, forcing her upright until her head is on his shoulder and she's locked tight in his arms. "All mine, all mine, _all mine_," he's panting, each movement become desperate and erratic. The sound he makes is that of a sob, harsh and ragged, pulled from the very depths of his soul. He thrusts hard into Molly, holds himself there and presses her down, as though they will meld together and he'll never be outside of her again if only he uses enough force.

Afterward they strip, leaving a trail of clothing that leads to the bedroom. Molly's drowsy, ready to curl up against Sherlock and sleep, but he's kissing her shoulders and sliding down the bed. He ends up between her legs, uncaring of the previous mess that remains there. He stays buried in her cunt for so long that Molly becomes hoarse and convinced that if she has even one more orgasm she'll die.

He resurfaces as aroused as before, slick mouth seeking out Molly's. The taste of her own pleasure on his tongue and lips is far more arousing than she'd anticipated, leaving her suckling his tongue in a way that makes Sherlock whimper and thrust mindlessly against her stomach.

When they come together this time, there is nothing hurried or rushed about it. Sherlock rolls them so Molly is astraddle his hips and he's even deeper than before. Again the pain of being so _full_ is a violent pleasure, one Molly takes full advantage of. She rides Sherlock for so long that her thighs and stomach are screaming in pain, and Sherlock is begging ("Please, Molly, please; anything, I'll do anything, just please – _fuck_ – harder, I need – _please_ –"), incoherent and desperate, but never taking his eyes off her for long.

It's as much a torture to Molly as it is to Sherlock, and finally she leans down, runs her mouth across his jaw before whispering, "Fuck me hard, Sherlock." She finds herself on her back between one breath in the next, a leg hoisted into the crook of Sherlock's arm. The bed frame squeaks and squeals, unused to such treatment, and the headboard sounds as though it may very well crash through the wall.

Sherlock is _relentless_. Sweat drips from his brow, he grips the headboard with one hand and Molly's arse with the other. "Tell me – tell me how much you wanted this."

"Dreamed about it," Molly gasps out, blunt nails digging hard into his shoulder. "Years. Fucked myself thinking about you. Oh my _God_, yes, that, _please, please again_ –"

When it's over Sherlock collapses beside her, his face in her hair and arm around her waist. Molly threads her fingers through his. Even in sleep, Sherlock doesn't release her.

**V**

Molly writes herself a prescription for a morning after pill, and picks it up from a local pharmacy. She calls into work, feeling as though she's being twisted inside out as her body begins its reaction to the medication.

Curled up on her couch, wrapped in a blanket and soothed by leftover painkillers from a dental procedure she'd a month ago, Molly broods about the conversation they'd had before she left Baker Street. It was preceded by the sort of morning sex that poets wrote sonnets about and most women thought was a fantasy; it had been slow, sweet, and actually moved Molly to quiet tears.

"I'm going to have to continue seeing Janine," Sherlock had announced after a shower that took a ridiculous amount of time because _someone_ couldn't keep his hands to himself.

It was rather a slap in the face. "Excuse me, _what_?" There was no way, no _possible_ way, Molly had read his actions and words wrong. _None_. He'd wanted her as much as she'd wanted him, and it was obvious that he'd had nearly as much pent up lust and longing as Molly herself.

"It's for a case," Sherlock blurted out in a rush, shoulders tense as he turned away to start the kettle. "It's essential that she feel very, very strongly for me. But I won't – there won't be anything like what happened between us. And I'm afraid we can't do this again for a while. There's something I need to take care of, and I don't want you to become involved in it."

What other choice did Molly have but to agree to these demands? She doesn't like it, but she trusts Sherlock. He'd sworn it would go on for only a few more weeks, and _surely_ she can wait that long. Especially when she knows what's coming to her at the end of it.

**VI**

"What do you mean I need to run a urine analysis on Sherlock?" Molly carefully asks John, while staring at Sherlock from the short distance between them. He's looking anywhere and everywhere but at her, eyes darting wildly while his hands twitch nervously.

"I found him in a flop house," John admits. "He swears he's only on a case, but we need to be sure. He's not... himself."

_He looks like a junkie_, Molly realizes, and feels as though she's going to burst into tears. Instead she steadies her nerves and digs a sterile cup out of a drawer before marching to Sherlock and thrusting it out at him.

"Pee in it," she orders.

"This is wholly unnecessary, Molly –"

"_Sherlock Holmes_," she hisses, "you're going to piss in this cup right now or I will catheterize you and get a sample myself."

She follows him to the bathroom, as does John. "Would one of you like to hold it?" Sherlock snarks, but she and John glower him into submission.

It's not that she doesn't _trust_ John – she does – but he can be fooled. Two sets of eyes are better than one, especially where Sherlock is concerned. After, she takes the sample back to the lab and sets to work, praying for the outcome her instincts say she won't be getting. It doesn't long, not at all; the reactions are nearly instantaneous.

Snapping her gloves off, Molly tosses them to the counter. She wants to _scream_. It feels as though she's going to rip herself apart in _rage_ – and hurt. So much bloody _hurt_. She's trusted him, she always has, and he does this. This beautiful, blessed bastard – he's born with the mind of a god and what does he do? He kills himself, bit by bit, using coke to jump start his brain and heroin to slow himself back down, when it all becomes too much.

"Well? Is he clean?" asks John.

"Clean?" Molly parrots, absolutely vibrating with rage. She rounds on Sherlock, stalking in front of him. He's sitting on the table, waiting for his punishment; she can see in his eyes how he's attempting to distance himself and failing, waiting for the axe to fall.

The sound of flesh-hitting-flesh causes everyone to jump in shock. Molly's palm stings, but she does it again, putting so much force into the hit that her entire arm begins to ache. Sherlock keeps his gaze downcast, a deadened look in his eyes. Still, this is not enough, and so she slaps him again, though with her left hand this time.

"How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with! And how _dare_ you betray the love of your friends! Say you're sorry."

"Sorry you're engagement's over," Sherlock spits, working his jaw. Had she really hurt him? God, she hopes so. "Though I'm grateful for the lack of a ring."

The _bastard. _Does he think reminding her exactly how she and Tom broke up is going to help him?

"Stop it," she orders, and hates how much it sounds like begging. "Just stop it."

He never looks her in the eye. Not once.

**VII**

Sherlock leaves several messages and texts her so many times that Molly turns off her mobile.

For the very first time, Molly thinks she may be completely _finished_ with Sherlock Holmes. For as long as she'd wanted this very thing, she never imagined how horrifically it would hurt.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **This was really hard for me to write. Anyone who knows how hard it is for me to deal with the issue of substance abuse knows why and the reason I cried over this for so long. So. There we go. A billion thanks to MizJoely, who holds my hand and keeps my writing in line. Thank you, doll!

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

**I **

It's eleven o'clock at night, and as Molly is jarred from wakefulness she's reaching out for Sherlock. She touches cold sheets and empty air, fingers aching from the lack of warm skin, lungs collapsing as they take in the scent of clean laundry and the faint brush of her perfume and lemon scented shampoo, but nowhere is there a trace of Sherlock. Her dream is already fading, and with it the illusion that she has any right to expect him to be at her side.

Someone is buzzing her doorbell while simultaneously banging on the door.

_Something's wrong_, Molly realizes. The thought is instinctive and urgent, making her stomach plummet before it races back up to lodge in her throat. Struggling from the tangle of sheets and blanket, bolting out of bed and slapping one hand along her nightstand before she chances upon her glasses and shoves them on, Molly practically runs. On the way past the little chair by the door she catches the trailing sleeve of her dressing gown, pulling it with her.

It's flung on but left untied when she hurls the door open.

"What's happened?" she demands before even seeing who's woken her.

It's Greg Lestrade. He looks like hell, dark circles around his eyes and his mouth a sorrowful line. It looks as though he's aged overnight, lived twenty years in the space of a few hours. "Molly, it's Sherlock –" he begins, and the world drops out.

Over the buzz in her head, she hears Greg's words once more. "– they've taken him into surgery, John's at the hospital with him. He sent me to find you, said he's been calling. Sherlock was... he was asking for you, in the ambulance. John thinks you need to be there... in case... if he..."

The sound that crawls out of Molly's throat is inhuman. She crumples at the waist, bending in on herself. Her heart has been torn from her ribs, ripped from her body and left abandoned on the street. Everything is cold, so very cold.

"Oh God," she gasps, before gagging. She's going to be sick. This can't be real. _It can't be real. _"Is it – was it drugs –"

"Molls, honey, calm down. Come on. Lets sit, okay? No, he didn't overdose. Come on, now, sit. There we go. All right, Molly, look at me. Focus on my voice, all right? I need you to listen to me." Greg is crouched down in front of her, serious and calm. He's every inch the Detective Inspector Lestrade that Molly sometimes forgets he is, because usually he's just Greg with the smart mouth and constant air of life-inspired exasperation.

As a planet may be pulled into the gravitational pull of a sun, Molly sucks her emotions and hysteria into herself. Now is not the time to fall apart. She's a medical professional, trained to handle stressful situations. She's faked Sherlock's death, lied to the police and her employers and tabloid newspapers; she's falsified evidence and flown halfway around the world to patch up a supposedly dead man no less than four times on the orders of Mycroft Holmes; if she can't be strong now, when Sherlock once again needs her, she might as well hang up her lab coat up.

She takes several deep breaths, each one bringing layers of calm and control. They're rice paper thin and may be easily shredded, but she can build more and more on, until they mold together into a thick, protective shell. "What happened?" she asks. There's a razor edge of hysteria on her words, but they're slow and level. She can do this – she _has_ to do this.

A pause. Greg visibly wavers, and Molly can see the grief and fear in his eyes. "Sherlock was shot," he finally admits.

And that is how Molly's world collapses.

**II**

The hospital is too bright. Molly aches for dark corners and dimly lit nooks to hide in, the scent of aging stone and the feeling of eternity that Bart's carries within. It takes too long to find John in a waiting room that is a sickening mix of pastels and neutrals, with a flat screen bolted high up on the wall and the sound turned off. It's a late night Jeremy Kyle marathon, and absurdly it makes a lump clog Molly's throat.

She thinks of tossing popcorn at Sherlock as he shouted at her television, and how it felt to fall asleep after a long night with the telly nattering on in the background, her head on his shoulder. Her stomach twists, and Molly swallows down bile.

"Thank God you're here," says John, and he's got her hands in between his. There are tears and a wild look in his eyes, as though he's a breath away from falling apart. Molly imagines she must look just the same. "He kept asking for you when he was semi-conscious, and I thought you needed to know..."

A steadying breath. Molly's chest aches. Pressure throbs behind her eyes, threatening a stress migraine that is about to make itself known. "What was he saying?" Does she really want to know?

Yes. It may kill her as surely as the bullet may kill Sherlock, but she needs to know.

John is army straight and rigid, but his left hand and upper lip quiver. "'Thank you, Molly,'" John hoarsely repeats. "And 'Perfect.' He kept saying, 'My Molly is perfect.' It was the last thing he said before losing consciousness that last time."

The world narrows down to a pain Molly could never hope to explain. She thinks of Sherlock's mindless praise in the heat of passion – _perfect, I knew you would be – _and the way he seemed mad with need. It brings up images of Sherlock bloody and dying, blood pressure and heart rate plummeting while memories of a happier past flicker through his mind.

Deep breath. Remain calm. Now is not the time; later, Molly can fall apart. But not now. Not yet. "And his injuries?"

She and John speak in the language of medicine, falling back into old, practiced rhythms. It is unaccountably soothing, despite the knowledge that Sherlock's injuries are more than life threatening. The chances of his surviving the surgery are marginal, at best, and even if he does... well, there's no promise that he'll wake up. Not at this stage.

John goes for coffee, and returns with three cups and Mycroft. The elder Holmes is tense and snappish, though he shoots regular, searching looks at Molly. She ignores them. An hour later Mr. and Mrs. Holmes arrive, far more ragged than Molly is used to seeing them.

"Oh, Mikey!" cries Mrs. Holmes, wrapping her elder son in a desperate hug. Mycroft looks incredibly close to bursting out in nervous hives. "Have you heard anything? Is the surgery over?"

"Nothing as of yet," Mycroft answers, patting his mother gingerly on the back before edging away.

After a short while, Mr. Holmes comes to sit with Molly. "You never come see us now that Sherlock's home," he notes, fingers tapping and twitching nervously. Sherlock's do the very same, and even in the same pattern; the sight makes her heart strain.

"I'm sorry," she answers after a too long pause. "He keeps me busy."

"See you're not wearing that ring, any longer. Things not work out with Tom, then?"

Molly's chin wobbles. _Do not cry_, she sternly orders before promptly bursting into tears. They're quiet things, no great sobs or heavy weeping; it's just tears, streaming down her face as though the heavens have split open and sent down a great rainfall.

"No," she chokes out. "Couldn't last, really. Not when I'm in love with someone else." Biting her cheek, Molly bows her head. Mr. Holmes's arm around her shoulders is warm and comforting. He leans his cheek on top of Molly's head, tucking her into his side as best the arm rest between them will allow.

"He'll be all right, our Sherlock," he comforts her, though his rich voice is strangled and raw. "He's a stubborn boy. Won't let something as simple as a bullet stop him."

Mr. Holmes and Molly sit this way for a long, long time. He strokes her hair and whispers sweet platitudes; Molly squeezes his fingers and tells him all the mad, brilliant, wonderful things his son has done in her lab and to her life. They both shed tears, but neither comment on it.

"Stop that silly weeping," Mrs. Holmes finally orders, thrusting two disposable cups of tea at them. Her eyes are red and ringed with eyeliner. "Sherlock will be just fine, I don't know what this terrible fuss is all about!"

Doors swish open, and as they have for hours now, several heads turn. The air is heavy with tension as they wait, hoping, hoping... "Holmes?" asks a surgeon in full scrubs. He looks exhausted, lines heavy beside his eyes and mouth. "Sherlock Holmes's family?"

"Yes!" Everyone seems to shout at once, lunging upright and nearly bowling the poor man over.

Mrs. Holmes has taken a grip on Molly's hand so tight that small bones grind together and the blood flow is cut off. On her other side is Mr. Holmes, who keeps a steadying arm about his wife and seems to be bracing himself for the worst. John is on Molly's left, hands folded behind his back and desperation in his eyes. Mycroft stands a bit apart, as always, and looks close to abusing the surgeon with his brolly if news isn't provided and quickly.

"It was touch and go," the surgeon announces, "and we thought we'd lost him. He flat lined for three minutes. But he came back all on his own, it's a miracle. You should realize how lucky you are. He's going to have a long recovery time, and he's not out of the woods yet, but he's out of surgery."

Mrs. Holmes gives a moaning sob, rolling her face into her husband's shoulder. "Oh, I told you he would be fine!" she cries, knees obviously threatening to give out.

John and Molly take on the job of holding each other up. The world has fractured into shards and angles due to the tears in her eyes. Under her breath she mutters prayers of thanksgiving and joy and mercy, dizzy with gratefulness.

He's alive. Thank you, God, thank you... he's _alive_...

**III**

"Why haven't you been in to see him?" Mrs. Holmes makes her presence known in such a way that a tornado might; with a great calm, and then a burst of earth-changing energy.

"Um," says Molly, scrubbing exhaustion and sleep from her eyes. "I don't... I didn't want to get in the way. Of everyone else. You're his family, you know, and I thought –"

"He asked if you'd been told," interrupts Mrs. Holmes, eyebrows lifting. Her clear blue eyes, as magnificent and piercing as her son's, look through Molly in a way she's far too familiar with. "Seems positively irate that you not only knew, but that you were here. If we hadn't turned up his morphine, he may have well strangled poor Dr. Watson for having sent that lovely Detective Inspector to fetch you."

Molly's heart shutters. "I can go," she whispers, doing her best to keep it together. She sits up from the uncomfortable love seat she's been napping in, looking for her bag. She needs to get out of here, and now, before she does something horribly embarrassing. "I knew he wouldn't want to see me, but I just wanted to make sure he's okay. But now I have, so, no point in me –"

"In primary, he fancied this lovely little girl named Helena. He made her cry at least once a day, and regularly informed her how stupid and boring she was." Mrs. Holmes is smiling in that soft, fond way all mothers have. "Oh, I gave him quite the talking to, but he's only just now starting to grow out of it. Well, with certain people at least. He didn't want you to be worried, that's all. He's a bit out of his head, but he's been asking for you. Go on, now."

Taking a moment to gather herself, Molly tries to scrub the exhaustion and worry from her face with curled fingers before she stands. Mrs. Holmes pats her leg as she walks past, looking for all the world like a cat that got the cream.

Mr. Holmes is just leaving Sherlock's room. He holds the door open for Molly, offering her a soft wink. "He's a bit loopy from the drugs," he warns, before going on his way.

So many wires and machines, a drainage tube in his surgery site and several bags plugged into his IV line. Molly slowly moves to the end of the bed, taking up his chart and reading. Each notation and sentence leaves her sicker than the last, as she realizes that Sherlock did not simply come _close_ to dying – he did. And the fact that he is still here is more of a miracle than she will ever be able to fully comprehend.

"Incredibly dull reading," slurs Sherlock, eyes only half open. He gestures vaguely at Molly. "Here. Come here."

Attempting to swallow down a show of emotion (Sherlock needs her to be calm and in control right now), Molly replaces the chart at the foot of his bed before moving around. She allows Sherlock to take her hand, presses her fingers a bit too tightly against his palm. When he clumsily threads their fingers together she assists the motions, clinging to him with all the stalwartness of a woman that has nearly lost her soulmate.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Molly Hooper," he breathes, voice harsh from prolonged sedation and the breathing tube that kept him alive during surgery. Those marvelous eyes Molly loves so well, they keep falling shut. Each time Sherlock jerks them open again with more and more force, as though determined to keep his hazy gaze on her. "Never. I always do though. I'm so sorry, Molly. You always save my life and I always hurt you..."

"Hush, Sherlock." Gently Molly runs her free hand through his hair, attempting to tame the wild curls. "None of it matters right now, all right? You just need to rest."

"But you always matter..." he protests, head lolling to the side. Just when Molly thinks he's fallen asleep, he whispers, "Don't leave." Two small words, and how much they mean. How very much.

"Of course." Kissing a cheek that's rough with stubble, Molly pulls a chair to his bedside before sitting down. Sherlock sleeps and, like a guardian angel, Molly keeps watch.

**IV **

Four days after Sherlock's shooting, Molly re-enters the hospital with a stack of tabloid trash stuffed into her bag and a burning sense of dread that has her stomach twisted into knots. She's seen Sherlock do things under the influence of drugs that he would never normally do: it is not only his cruelty that soars into shocking levels when he is high. There was once, a very long time ago when Molly was a new pathologist and Sherlock was half dead from heroin, a night where lines blurred and Molly nearly lost herself in need.

"Beautiful,"she recalls Sherlock whispering, his mouth ghosting over her breasts. She'd been pressed against the cold storage lockers, a handle digging into her back, but Molly hadn't cared. No, not when his tongue was curling around her nipple and his hand was sliding down her trousers. His pupils had been blown so very, very wide, but not just from lust. "I've seen you watch me, _Doctor Hooper_, and I know what you want. This, yes? For me to fuck you? I've barely touched you and you're soaking through your panties; for shame, doctor, this isn't very professional of you..."

He'd groaned – God, that sound, it had haunted Molly for _years_ – and she'd watched the shiver wrack his too-thin frame. Slowly, so slowly he'd pressed one long finger inside her, and all Molly could do was sob in pleasure as she clung to his shoulders. It was wrong, yes, she'd known how fucking _wrong_ it was; but he was clearly aroused and yes, yes she'd wanted him from the first moment she saw him. Wanted his brilliant mind and skinny little body, his messy curls and rare smiles.

God, how furious Sherlock had been when she'd managed to clamp a hand around his wrist, bringing his motions to a halt. He'd looked up at her, those hazy eyes questioning as her nipple popped, wet and rosy, from his mouth. Molly was hanging on the edge of an orgasm, so close she could taste it, feel the beginning quivers in her thighs and stomach and cunt. But she'd said, _"_Sherlock, wait. Not like this. Not when you're –"

Sherlock had left the morgue, and didn't return for three months. In the end he didn't come back until he was clean, fresh out of rehab and once again working with Greg and Scotland Yard. They never brought that night up again, not once; not how desperately he'd pinned her against the storage unit, not how he'd kissed her until they were both gasping for air, not even the way he'd cupped her cunt in one large hand and _begged_ her to reconsider. It was as though it never happened, and Molly is sure it's because he doesn't remember. Either he was too high or he deleted the memory from his mind palace; either way, the result is the same.

The tabloid papers featuring Janine's stories don't seem at all ridiculous when held up against Molly's knowledge of the things Sherlock can do when under the influence. His inhibitions are removed, one by one, until Sherlock seeks out the primal and basic pleasures. If Janine was practically living with him, staying over more often than not and sleeping in his bed, what's to say that they weren't shagging?

Which makes what happened between Molly and Sherlock about as meaningless as a two-cent fuck bought off a street corner. A transaction, moments of pleasure, a dismissal. What a clever little ploy: _I can't be with you right now, Molly, I've got to pretend to be with someone else for a case. _And she'd bought it, swallowed the hook and waited for him like a good little woman. The whole time he was playing with her, using her feelings for his gain once again.

Molly truly believed she meant more to him than that. And perhaps she does, in some strange way. But right now she thinks that Sherlock Holmes is incapable of loving someone else – not because of a defect, no, but because he's simply too _selfish. _

"Oh – Molly, right?" A whip of dark hair, the flash of white teeth, a hand leaping out to take Molly's arm.

Out of everyone Molly could possibly meet today, this is the _very _last she'd hoped for. Speaking is a bit out of her abilities, so she answers with a simple nod and a grimace-like smile.

"On your way to see Sherlock, then? Bet you are. You know, I felt bad for you, I really did. Anyone who's around you for more than a few minutes, yeah, it's obvious how you feel about Sherlock Holmes. It's a good thing you're not wearing that ring anymore; at Mary and John's wedding it was clear enough who you really wanted. I had a few talks with Sherlock, you know that? About being _kind_ to you. You seemed like a really nice woman, I'd hoped we could be friends. So I need to know – did you know?"

Long, deep breathes. _Control, Molly. _"I'm sorry, what?"

"Did you know he was using me? That none of it was real? Did you know?" Janine is showing too many teeth, one hand locked around Molly's arm and a suspicious glint in her eyes.

And just like that, Molly feels like the lowest scum on earth. One hand lifts to her mouth in an attempt to smother a heaving sigh, her shoulders sagging under the weight. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I didn't know everything, but I... I knew enough. I should have told you."

"Yeah, you should have." A pause, in which Janine is clearly trying to regain control of her emotions. "So, were you fucking him?"

A tear slides down Molly's cheek. A weak nod. She wants the floor to crack open and swallow her, to be sucked down to the pits of hell where she belongs. Never in her life has she ever, _ever, _felt like such a monster. "Just – just one night. Three weeks after you began... after he started..." Gesturing helplessly to the space between them, a wordless indication of the deception Sherlock played with Janine, Molly struggles to find words. "I'm sorry," she breathes, a broken plea for forgiveness Molly knows she doesn't deserve. "I was selfish and cruel, and I – I shouldn't have –"

"He talks in his sleep, especially when he's high. I knew, you know? Didn't want to admit it, but I knew. _My Molly, _he'd say, and so I should have seen it. That I was getting fucked in every way but the one I wanted." Janine's smile is bitter and dark. "At least he was faithful to one of us, in his own way. Have a good life, Dr. Hooper. You and Sherlock Holmes really do deserve each other."

When Molly enters the room, Sherlock takes only one look at her before putting on a dark frown. "You and Janine ran into each other and now you're upset," he announces, as though Molly may have forgotten. "You're _crying._" He's struggling further upright, grimacing and groaning with each movement. His eyes are clear, which means the morphine hasn't overtaken his system for the moment.

On one hand, Molly is positively overwhelmed at how he is visibly angered and upset at the sight of her tears. The second palm, however, holds a stark reminder of everything Sherlock has done: a willful relapse, using a Janine, using _Molly. _

"Was it because you were high?" she demands, and there's a part of her saying, _can't this wait? He's not well, I can't do this to him right now. _

Sherlock's expression because a study in polite confusion. "I'm sorry, Molly? Was what because I was high? If you mean getting shot, well, I suppose it may have slowed my reflexes, but at the indicated distance –"

"You know what I mean." And he _does_, she knows he does. One deep, ragged breath in which Molly fights hard to keep herself from tears. "The sex, was it just because you were high?"

The muscles in his jaw and cheek tick. Sherlock's eyes grow cold, but behind the layer of ice Molly can see hurt. But is it _real? _Is it a lie, an act, a manipulation? How the hell is she supposed to tell, anymore? Or has she _ever _been able to?

"I can't believe you would even ask me that." Sharp, clipped words. Nostrils flaring, hands clenching... oh, he's angry and close to shouting. If they weren't in a hospital, if he was in better health, Molly knows he'd be stomping around the room and throwing things in a fit.

"I can't believe you don't see why I _have_ to." Into the bag her hand delves, and up comes the tabloids. Molly tosses them across the foot of his bed, where they join other copies. "A fiancée, Sherlock? You asked her to _marry _you?"

"I was much less indignant when I learned of your engagement," sniffs Sherlock, obviously trying to tip the scales in his favor. "And that one was _real._"

"I never lied to Tom."

"Didn't you? I rather think that not sharing that you're in love with another man is a _lie_, especially when you truly intended on marrying the man."

_Calm down, _Molly urges herself. She turns away, counting to ten several dozen times before her heart rate lowers and her mind is clearing. Deep in her bones and soul, Molly _knows_ what she means to Sherlock Holmes. Maybe it's not apparent to everyone, but it is to her: he trusts her, and that is not something he gives out easily. More than that, he feels for her. Is it love? This Molly cannot be sure of. She doesn't doubt his capacity to love, of course not (he's a human like any other, despite what he'd like the world to believe); perhaps it all simply boils down to the fact that she cannot believe that Sherlock Holmes – a liar, a genius, a cruel, brilliant, terrifically kind man to those who are close to him; a man that cannot possibly be defined so easily – could ever love _Molly Hooper. _

She can't help but fear that it's all going to fall apart, and that she's going to be Janine. That she, too, will walk away with a broken heart, the poor woman that was used and tossed by Sherlock like so much rubbish.

"Molly." It's so _gentle, _the way he says her name. As she turns to face him, she sees that Sherlock has lifted up a hand. His fingers waggle insistently at her. He's biting back a grimace, and Molly can see the motion hurts him; she hurries to his bedside, taking his hand and pushing it down so he doesn't strain himself.

"Stop that," she fusses, rubbing her palm up his forearm. His skin is cool, and not for the first she wonders why they haven't put him in a hospital gown, or at least given him a robe.

"Never doubt that you will always be the one that matters the most to me; the one that is closest to my heart."

The hospital room blurs as, despite his pain, Sherlock lifts her hand. The kiss he lays on her palm is sweet and wet, lingering too long to be chaste. His heart monitor spikes as he trails down her wrist, tracing the soft rise of a blue vein with the seam of his mouth, shoulders lifting as he deeply inhales her scent.

With this Molly knows that it doesn't matter how cruel or unkind he can be, that he is an addict and will _always _be one, or even that he can pick up people and cast them aside as though they are no more than used bits of tissue: all the matters, in the end, is that Sherlock Holmes is her heart.

And she may very well be his.

**V**

"I need to know all his boltholes, _now._" John Watson storms into the autopsy room of St. Bart's morgue, belting out his questions in the sharp way that an army general has. Which, Molly has to admit, really does make sense.

"What?" she asks, completely baffled. A rib cracker is lodged in the chest of Robert Gregory Kent, and she's still gripping the handles. Behind her protective face shield, Molly imagines she must look absolutely gobsmacked. "What's wrong, John?"

"_Sherlock,_" growls the good doctor, looking close to pulling his hair out. "His bolt-holes, I need their addresses. All of them. Immediately."

Twenty minutes later, Molly is in the cafeteria, sucking down strong tea with too much sugar (she's got to do something to try and cover up the burnt taste, hasn't she?), while John sits across from her. She's rattling off a list of Sherlock's boltholes from memory, scrunching her face up as she forces herself to recall all the address. "And there's my spare bedroom. Well, my bedroom; we agreed he needed the space." She pauses to take a drink, fighting against a smile.

"Right, thanks. I'll – I'll just – sorry, but he really uses your place as a bolt-hole?" John pauses in the act of tucking his notebook away, pen trembling in his fingers as he surveys Molly. His expression is somewhere between disbelief and pity. "He kicks you out of your own bed?"

Molly's laugh is small and nervous. "Um, well, not exactly? We um – I've got a large bed, see – and it only seemed logic that we, you know, share."

It's obvious that John is having trouble processing this information. "Sherlock – _our_ Sherlock – he sleeps with you? Really?"

"If you tell him I'll deny admitting it," Molly warns, before leaning forward with a crooked little grin. "But he cuddles in his sleep."

"Blimey," he whispers, shoving his fingers through his hair. "He's full of surprises, isn't he?"

Molly shrugs, though there's amusement tickling the back of her throat. "What's this about, then? He sent you off on some wild goose chase or something?"

"He's disappeared," John deadpans, mouth twitching as he fights to contain the anger flashing in his eyes. "Window was open, and he's just... gone."

Molly's heart comes close to stopping. She thinks of his injury and surgery site, the frailty of his nicked aorta and how painful it had been to bury him the first time around and _knowing _it was fake. A second time, a _last _time, would see Molly in a grave before she recovered. Her own heart couldn't take losing him, not now. Not like this.

Finally she chokes out, "I'll help you look."

"Sherlock may come see you. We need you to be here if he does."

Agreeing with this, accepting to simply sit by and _wait, _is one of the hardest things Molly has ever had to do.

**VI**

Molly never learns what really happened, why Sherlock escaped from the hospital like a fugitive on the run, or how John and Mary were involved – though it's clear, after the fact, that they _are. _All she knows for certain is that Sherlock had to endure three more hours of surgery, and something occurred that was terrible enough to rip John and Mary Watson's marriage apart.

It's a Thursday evening when she helps Mary move out of the flat. "John wanted you to keep it," Molly keeps insisting.

"I can't stay here," Mary answers each time. "Not without him. I _can't._"

"But he'll be _back,_" Molly swears, because in her soul she knows it's true. But Mary looks at her as though she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders, as though she's an adult keeping some terrible truth from a child too young to understand, and simply walks away.

**VII **

Weaning Sherlock off the morphine is a nightmare. As his dosage lowers his withdrawal symptoms begin: while the doctors seemed oblivious to Sherlock's history of addiction, seeming to plug their ears even after Molly and John and Mr. Holmes all but begged them to give him something else (and Molly suspects Mycroft, who kept saying things like _he's been shot, it's not as though a plaster and an aspirin will help him now, _to have indulged his little brother too far once again), now there is no denying what their patient is going through. The line they walk is a tight one, as keeping him dependent on the morphine is impossible, but stressing his now fragile body too much could be deadly.

She convinces his parents to have him moved to St. Bart's, into a private room on the second floor. The doctors and nursers are, by and large, wary of his angry outbursts and scathing deductions but still incredibly protective over the famous detective: he's a fixture at Bart's, one of their own. Tabloid reporters are run off time after time, and Nurse Herringer – who is build like a soccer linebacker and often wears scrubs patterned with kittens – is seen carrying a photojournalist out in a fireman's lift.

Molly runs tests without Sherlock's permission and without putting them on record. It's an ethical breach, but certainly not her first, assuredly not her last. When she and Sherlock both come back clean for disease and STDs, which she feared may have been transmitted from his needle usage, she puts her face in her hands and _weeps. _It's like a stone wall has been lifted off her shoulders, blown away by a strong wind.

The anger remains, a low simmer. He _never _should have put them in such risk... he never should have put _Molly _at risk. Not after all she's done for him, all she's given up.

"Bring it _back._" Sherlock sounds like an entirely different man – his voice is raspy and threatening, and there's a mad look in his eyes. Sweaty tendrils of hair dangle into his eyes, and he's wrapped in several blankets brought from the heating cupboard. His t-shirt is sweat stained and his sweatpants sag at his narrow hips.

Sighing, Molly places her bag on the chair by his door. "Hello," she greets. A headache is beginning at her temples and behind her eyes, a throbbing pressure that is from both the weight of her (admittedly beautiful) hair and stress. "My day was fine, thanks. Oh, you're welcome for coming to see you after a twelve hour shift, I know how much you _appreciate_ it."

"_**Bring. It. Back.**_" He's shivering from head to toe, quaking like a leaf in a strong wind.

It hurts Molly to see him like this. But she knows this is his only option, and so she hardens her heart. "I'm not your physician, Sherlock, I've no control over your morphine."

"You've dictated every step of this, don't think I don't know –"

"I brought you some new books. This one's a history, looks quite good. War of the Roses, has an interesting take on –"

"_You've no __**right!**_" His shout echoes around the little room, and his heart monitor is rising too quickly for Molly's liking. She sets the books aside and moves to his bed, checking his vitals and pupils despite how he tries to jerk away. Strong-arming him feels cruel, but what other choice does she have? Molly holds his chin in one hand and shines a light in his eyes.

There are tears there, and it breaks her heart.

"Please," he whispers, taking a light grip on her arm. A tear tumbles down his cheek, followed by another and another. "_Please, _Molly, I need help. I need your help."

She gently answers, "I know." One hand smooths his hair back, and she hopes he doesn't notice how her fingers tremble. "That's why I'm not getting morphine for you."

He flings her away with such force that Molly stumbles. "Then what _bloody _use are you!?" The abuse he continues to shout is _so_ violent, so cruel, that she leaves the books on his bedside table and leaves. He shrieks after her as she goes ("Come back! Molly – Molly, I'm sorry, forgive me, _don't leave me like this! I __**need **__you!_"), and though she barely makes it halfway down his corridor before bursting into tears and collapsing against the wall, leave him she does. Nurse Herringer crouches down at her side, wraps an arm around Molly and lets her cry.

"Let on it out, girl," she urges, stroking the hair from Molly's face. "You can't do the recovery for him, Dr. Hooper, as much as you want to. He's got to want to do it himself. So you cry for both of you, honey, just let it out: ain't no shame in being strong enough to grieve for what that idiot has thrown away."

And grieve Molly does.

**VIII**

On the day he's released, Sherlock very gingerly touches Molly's elbow.

"I'm so sorry," he mutters while looking to the side. Everything about him stiff and uncomfortable, and not just from lingering pain and weakness.

"I know," she agrees after a moment. They're both silent as she loads him into the car Mycroft sent, tucking him into the backseat before sliding in with his bag. Once the driver has set off and they are into traffic, Molly draws in a deep breath. "If you ever put me through this again, I'm done."

Is it selfish? Is it cruel? It doesn't matter, not in this situation. There is only so much Molly has to give, and he has drained her. She loves him, God knows she does, but her aunt once told her, "You can love someone and not be able to be with them." Even though it was meant to help a fourteen year old Molly through the loss of her first "serious" boyfriend, she thinks the advice fits now. Loving Sherlock is quite possibly the most traumatic thing she will ever do, and while it will never stop, there may come a day where she will have to walk away.

His mouth is hanging open, as though he wants to speak or perhaps doesn't know what to say. Molly meets Sherlock's gaze, allows him to search her and pull from her shoulders and hair and sad, exhausted, determined eyes that she _means _it. "Would you truly?" he finally inquires in a soft, little boy voice.

"Don't ever put yourself in the position to find out."

Sherlock nods, just once. He looks out the window, and then complains about the route the driver takes, which leads them into traffic so thick they're at a stand-still for fifteen minutes. But he's reached out and has a grip on Molly's hand, fingers slid between her own and holding on tight. Molly clings to him as much as he does her, terrified that one day he may put her to the test.

Walking away would kill her, but watching Sherlock kill himself would be a torture she couldn't bear.

**IX**

Slowly but surely, Sherlock regains strength.

Between Molly, Sherlock, and John is a terrible tension, a thickness that none can breach. They walk on egg shells and glass shards around each other, tip-toeing around Baker Street and avoiding eye contact. Sherlock always seems on the edge of saying something when he and Molly are alone; sometimes he keeps furniture and large spaces between them, while other times he cannot seem to bear to have her away from his side.

Something weighs heavily on his mind, or perhaps several somethings. He doesn't share his burden with Molly, and it provokes mixed feelings. Hasn't she proven herself? But hasn't she also done enough? Where is the line, where does it stop, where does Molly step away and allow Sherlock to be his own person? What are they, what is between them, what is her role? It's all too nebulous and as fragile as dragon fly wings, and so she asks no questions.

Maybe she's a coward, but she's still recovering from the last hurts he dealt her.

**X**

When John isn't there, Mary visits. Sherlock takes a profound interest in the progression of her pregnancy, keeping a notebook of observations and regularly demanding to listen to the heartbeat and palpitating Mary's uterus to see how the fetus is positioned. Mary puts up with it much better than Molly would have, and though she's drawn and sad, Sherlock's worry and obsession and unspoken love brighten her up.

"He's going to be a wonderful godfather," Mary confides over tea and biscuits.

"A terrible godfather, you mean," Molly corrects, mouth quirked into a grin. "He's going to teach Wee Watson all sorts of mad, brilliant things. Do you know he's already researching child's chemistry sets?"

When Sherlock comes out of the bathroom in a wave of steam that smells of his soap and aftershave, Molly and Mary are whooping with laughter on his sofa. He stares at them for a very long moment before drawing his dressing gown around him like armor.

"I don't think you ought to be having caffeine, Mary. Do think of the baby."

"_Do think of the baby,_" mimics Mary. Both women convulse in laughter, falling all over each other.

Sherlock sniffs, a picture of wounded dignity before he turns on his heel and marches to his bedroom. The slamming of his door provokes another round of laughter, and Molly revels in it. Lightheaded and weak, mouth and stomach aching, she soaks in this silly, wonderful moment and prays for more.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **The final chapter, at last! Get your tissues. Thank you to my readers, reviewers, cheerleaders, and most especially MizJoely taking my crap and making it legible. Any mistakes contained herein are my own. And a special thanks to dietplainlite, who is such a SWEETHEART, and who I love whole heartedly. 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes. **

**I**

"_What _are you doing?"

Molly does her very best not to let her agitation show as Sherlock's footsteps stop just inside the door to his flat. The question he issued was with the tone of a man that knows _exactly_ what he is seeing and yet still holds out belief that he may be wrong. Turning around and facing him isn't an option, not yet – if he gives her a pleading look and takes the duffle bag from her hands, she may give into him. No one else has such a way of weakening her resolve, and Sherlock certainly uses his sway over her to his advantage.

"I'm packing," she answers, in the process of picking up the sofa cushions and checking under them. So many of her things have migrated around his flat, including Toby. He's moved into Sherlock's room as though he belongs there, sleeping on the detective's ankles or even on Sherlock's pillow, practically nose-to-nose with his favorite human. Toby is going to be livid when she takes him home: she hasn't even been able to catch and place him in his carrier.

Astonishingly, she finds two socks (mismatched), a bracelet, one of Toby's toys, and a phial of God knows what under the couch cushions. She cleans everything out, making a mental note to vacuum it out the next time she nags Sherlock into leaving the flat and letting her clean, stuffing her things into the bag. She sits it on the floor to replace the cushions, still determinedly avoiding eye contact with the suspiciously quiet Sherlock.

"_Why_ are you packing?" he finally asks, sounding honestly baffled.

Firmly she answers, "Because I need to go home." She doesn't tell him why, because he's a bloody genius, he _has_ to see it. It's far too easy to fall into a lull – no, a _life -_ where she becomes a significant part of Sherlock's own. She nags him about eating and bothering John when he's at work, makes him speak to his parents regularly and assists in experiments. On quiet nights, when he's not on a case, they sit half-tangled together on the sofa, watching crap telly or B-rated horror flicks. Sherlock likes the old ones with silly monsters and terrible special effects, most of them in black and white and beautifully grainy.

Slipping into the role of a girlfriend or live-in or whatever it is she _could_ be to Sherlock – living this life and yet knowing she is something _less –_ it hurts. And to be honest, it scares Molly down to her toes. How many times has Sherlock let her down, broken her heart, lied or cheated or used her? She's forgiven him for each, oh yes, but after this last time – after Janine and the drugs and nearly getting himself killed _twice _– Molly doesn't _want_ to trust Sherlock.

She just doesn't think her heart can take anymore. She feels like a coward, hates herself for it and wonders where proud, strong hearted Molly Hooper has gone. But Sherlock has always made her something else; a mouse, a coward, a whisper in the background. This is no different.

For a time, Sherlock watches her. No movement, no speaking: just his eyes tracking her movements, his chest and shoulders lifting and dropping with each inhale and exhale. Finally, after Molly has finished poking around under the sofa and moved onto picking through the mess on the coffee table, Sherlock sheds his coat, hanging it on a wall hook. His scarf is next, unwound and neatly hung. His gloves he takes off one at a time, Molly watching as he tugs each finger out – the movements somehow sensual, making her teeth set on edge and heat flare in her gut – until his hands are bare and he's tucking the leather into a coat pocket.

Wordlessly, he shuts the door. How rare: it's normally left wide open, awaiting Mrs. Hudson or John or Mary, a client or Mycroft or Greg stopping for a case or a beer or to ask Molly for relationship advice. He walks into the kitchen, and Molly hopes against hope maybe he's going to be adult about this, about her letting her escape before her feelings grow even stronger and she _can't_ leave. Because as it stands now, going to sleep in an empty flat, knowing Sherlock is across the city and all alone, it's going to break her heart.

Instead she hears the sound of the second door shutting, the click of a lock and thump of a deadbolt. He comes back around, the old floor creaking under his slight weight as he advances on her. For a moment Molly only watches, eyes widening; by the time she realizes he's reaching out it's too late, and now he's taken her by the arms.

"Molly," he says, and just that. Just her name, but there's so much there. She can read it in his tone and eyes and the hesitant way his fingertips push into her skin, can see all the things he pushes down behind his lungs and into his stomach so they can't escape. His ribs are a cage that hold more than organs captive, keeping the truth of his humanity, the vast range of his caring and kindness and longing away from the world. She's always been able to see past it, past his too-pale skin and ever shifting eyes, his words that are often cruel and thoughtless.

For such a long time, it was enough. Especially after his little admittances, the way he clung to her hips and choked on _my Molly, mine, all mine_, as though he's starved for all the warmth she'd love lavish on him. But she aches for sunlight and rich earth, a place to grow strong roots. Nothing can live on truths left unspoken from fear, on a single sentence (_the one that mattered most_), on nine hours of sweat and sex and the kind of lust she'd always thought was fictional until it was his hands on her body and his mouth tracing the thin skin over her pulse.

She wants _more. _And if Sherlock can't provide it, well, she _can _be happy alone – even if it means leaving St. Bart's, leaving London, leaving England. He'll haunt every footstep and breath and thought she takes away from him, a ghost with electric eyes and an almost shy smile, the one she likes to think he shows to only her. But he is not the reason she lives and breathes, and she refuses to waste her life away on a man who is too scared of his feelings to actively pursue them.

"I want to be more than a glorified assistant," she announces, defiance in her eyes. Doesn't he _see_ what this does to her? What _he_ does? "I'm always going to be in love with you, Sherlock, but I deserve more than – than whatever we're doing here. Because we're not just friends, that's _obvious_, and I _know_ you care for me. But you keep me at arm's length, and you know what? It's _your_ choice to make, I'm not about to force you into a relationship. But you can't expect me to simply settle for living off your scraps when you feel like throwing me a bone!"

Sherlock leans down, brushes his mouth across her temple before quietly asking, "What precisely did Mycroft say to you?"

Molly's hands and heart tremble with a restless kind of fury._ Why _did she have to fall in love with Sherlock bloody Holmes, out of all the men in the world? It's not fair that he can see everything so clearly, not when she'd like to keep some things to herself.

"Nothing I didn't already know," she doesn't actually answer. Trying to shrug his hands away proves futile, and when she presses her palms to his chest, her traitorous fingers take a grip on his shirtfront. "Sherlock, please. Please don't do this."

She doesn't cry. Her tears were shed hours ago, into the handkerchief Mycroft pressed into her hands with an almost sorrowful look. "I _am_ sorry," he'd said, appearing utterly uncomfortable with her raw emotions. "But you will both end up wounded if things continue as they are, Dr. Hooper. I think you already know that. Do know that if he were different – or perhaps, if the situation he has put himself into were different – that I think he could have been happy with you in his life in this capacity."

_Could have been happy. _The _but he won't actually be happy __**with you**_ was implied, thankfully left unsaid. Once upon a time, Sherlock had made her voiceless and small. Now it is Mycroft Holmes that does the job, looks inside her and finds her unworthy, wielding his fantastic mind to debase one foolish woman of her notions regarding his brother.

And it _hurts._

"What did he say?" Sherlock takes the side of her face on one large hand, fingers burrowing into her loose hair. He forces her to look up and see him _not_ trying to hide his emotions, leaving his anger and fear and worry on display. "Tell me. Please."

It's the please that does it. She's heard him fake it a hundred, a _thousand, _times. _Please can you open the lab for me? Please may I borrow your expertise for an experiment? Please may I examine this corpse your boss specifically ordered I not be allowed near? _More rare are the ones that ring true, that come from the heart and hold no fabricated charm.

"He told me that I'm fool for allowing you to use me as some kind of security blanket. That I've grown too emotionally attached to you and our current living arrangement, and that now that you're back on your feet I will soon find myself being forced out of your life and back into the usual slot of _Dr. Hooper, pathologist, to be used when convenient for Sherlock. _He's right, isn't he? You've told me yourself that Mycroft is never wrong, that he's more brilliant than even you. So that's that, and if you'd just let me go I'd like to collect my things and –"

Sherlock kisses her. It's the opposite of the one that sparked their almost brutal union on the sofa after Tom left her; there is no blazing lust, no desperation for skin and pressure and the emptiness inside her body to filled. This has so very _little_ to do with sex, and much more to do with a pouring of emotion from one person to another.

"Oh, Sherlock," she sighs, caressing his jaw. Opening her eyes, looking at him, that would be a mistake at this point. Giving in wouldn't be an option, as she already would have done. "I know you care. I _know._ But we both know you don't want me, not in that way."

"I _do_." He pulls her close, enfolds her in not only his arms, but his warmth. It's a strange embrace, somehow _more_ than any other he's ever shared with her, as there is no uncertainty or moment of hesitation, no sense that he is holding something back. It feels to Molly as though portcullises have been lifted and she is being allowed into the inner most sanctum of Sherlock's mind, heart, and soul.

"I will never be... _average_," he haltingly begins, tucking Molly's head under his chin. "And yet I find myself desiring very average things. To wake with you beside me, or a pillow smelling of your shampoo; to bicker over take-away and television shows and body parts in the fridge (though I suppose that isn't terrible average, is it?); being nagged at to eat properly and call my mother. I want... I want to _know _that if I reach out I can touch you, any way I like. To feel your hair sliding through my fingers, or the way our arms brush when we walk together. Or to do this –" Sherlock's voice drops to a hoarse, ragged groan as those clever fingers Molly admires so well runs half-way down her arm, finding space between their bodies to slide in and cup her breast. She can see the vein in his neck throbbing, hard and fast, can hear his heart picking up speed as he weighs the clothed mound in his palm.

His thumb brushes across her nipple just once, rasping the rough knit of her jumper against the sensitive flesh. Immediately it pebbles, so tight and hard that it aches with a sweet fierceness, making Molly's knees weaken and her lungs quickly expand; the sound of her shivery gasp seems to propel Sherlock onwards, makes him give a heavy exhale before he slowly – so damn slowly, as though he's wary, frightened of her rejection – drops his hand down and pushes under the hem of her jumper. He palms her soft stomach and the dip of her hip into her waist, that feminine curve that Molly herself admires in the mirror while dressing or in particularly well fitted clothing.

His fingers trace over the notches of her ribs one at a time, his quick breathing ruffling Molly's hair. She's hot, distressingly so, as though the heat has shrunk her skin and made it too small for the muscles and bones and organs it covers. Sherlock skims his calloused fingertips over and under and back again, all along the underside of her breast, before tracing the outer sweep of round flesh. Molly finds herself rising onto her toes, pressing against his chest and stomach and hips, into his questing fingers. There's a whine, high and trembling, rising out of her throat as she twists, urging Sherlock on.

"Your discarding of a brassiere when at home drives me mad," admits Sherlock, finally rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger. It sends a shock wave of heat all the way to her cunt, making Molly throb and ache in time her heartbeat. "After you bathe, when you wear that bloody robe and your hair is wet – I want to tease you through the fabric, until it's wet and almost transparent from where I've had you in my mouth – I want to fuck you while you're wearing it, opened and see it framing your body, still damp and warm from your bath, hot where I'm inside you –" Roughly he pinches that sensitive tip, and Molly practically writhes. His words, the images they provoke, the painful sort of pleasure she likes so very well, it's all left her panting as though she's ran several blocks while spots flicker at the edge of her vision.

Not even three minutes, and Sherlock has turned her into a mess of _want _and _need _and _please, Sherlock, please_: Molly wants to resent him for it, she does, but he's breathing hard too, and the arm he has around her back has grown so tight to be just painful enough that Molly questions her own body. Had she always like this and not known? Her lovers in the past, they were tender and sweet, especially Tom: but she remembers university and a sometimes lover named Kevin, who was rough and sloppy when drunk; she thinks of how he'd bite her clit, hold it between his teeth and suck until she screamed, or she'd begged him to pull her hair and ride her so hard she had bruises on her thighs come morning.

She stopped seeing him when her roommate saw bruises in the shape of hands on her hips and arse, thought she was being brutalized and _insisted _Molly stay away from Kevin. She'd done so, yes of course she had, because there was still this great well of choking _shame _that bubbled up inside her when she thought of a big hand fisted in her long hair, pulling her head back while Kevin whispered all sorts of filthy, violent, _beautiful _things in Molly's ear.

But now here's Sherlock, who's never asked what she likes because he's Sherlock bloody Holmes and he reads her arousal and physical responses as though they're a playbook of how to make Molly Hooper embarrassingly wet. Maybe he remembers, on some subconscious level, the way she'd gone half-wild when he pushed her against the cold storage lockers in the morgue all those years ago, how she'd suckled his bottom lip when he curled a hand around her throat and held in her place. Maybe that probably forgotten, endlessly unspoken of encounter set the tone for the explosion that occurred when they finally did give into the lust; for sex that was half-brutal and completely _desperate_, even that last time in the morning, when pulled her tight against his chest and loved her so slowly and thoroughly that tears had spilled down her cheeks.

"I want you," Sherlock plainly admits, resting his cheek on the crown of her head.

The heat is still there, of course it is, because lusting for Sherlock has become so much a part of Molly's life that it's an unconscious action like breathing or the beating of her heart. At the moment it's tempered by a fierce sort of emotion, one that causes such a brutal ache in Molly's chest that it can be nothing but love. She feels as though her chest is too small to hold all this emotion, this boundless passion and adoration and tolerance and acceptance, this indescribable _weight _and _joy _that is love.

She doesn't for a second think it'll be easy, because he's Sherlock and she's Molly and their relationship swings between effortless and brutal from one hour to the next. But that's all right, because he still makes her smile and she drags him a little closer to his once completely closed off emotions with every passing day. She's still afraid of being hurt and let down, but what's the point of living if she hides in a bubble and never actually _lives, _allto keep from being broken?

So she answers honestly and simply: Molly says, "I love you."

It's the only answer she's ever needed, when it comes to Sherlock.

**II**

"What is that?"

Molly glances up at Sherlock in a distracted manner, before turning her attention back to the present she's wrapping. "St. John and the others have a completely ridiculous amount already, but there has to be enough for both the children and the adults. There's the yearly Christmas Eve battle, and last year I got stuck with foam swords. Never bring a knife to gun a fight, or you end up with a dart stuck to your forehead and the first causality of the 2012 Hooper Civil War."

"Is there a particular reason you wage war with toy guns and children?"

Shrugging, Molly bites the tip of her tongue as she lines the wrapping paper up just right before applying the first strip of tape. "Because it's fun," she answers. "We enjoy it as much as the kids. Beats the hell out of a stuffy dinner and awkward conversation."

"Mm," Sherlock agrees. He hangs his coat and scarf before retiring the bedroom. When he returns he's clad in clean pajamas and a robe, his bare feet lightly slapping the floor as he returns. He stokes the fire and adds a log before taking his violin out, moving to the window. He begins to play something soft and sweet, a piece that reminds Molly of quiet nights and dark mornings, skin sliding comfortably against skin and the sensation of breath rustling her hair.

"Molly?" He doesn't quit playing while speaking.

"Yeah?" Up on her knees, now, Molly is too busy making sure to cut a straight line without tearing the wrapping paper to look at Sherlock.

"My parent's home is less than two hours away from your brother's, by train. If you'd like to come. For Christmas, of course. Though if you'd rather return to London as you usually do, I'd understand. Baker Street, as always, is at your disposal."

Extremities go numb and a buzzing picks up in the back of Molly's skull. Shock like this is much like receiving a head injury. Sherlock is asking her to his parents for the _holiday? _The man celebrates Christmas for the sake of everyone else, or so it has always seemed, and the last time he visited his parents it was done only because his mother managed to guilt him into it.

"No!" she half shouts, flapping a hand and sharp pair of scissors at Sherlock's back. "I mean yes! I mean, _no, _I don't want to come back to Baker Street. Alone, I mean, yes I want after. But with you. Um, yes, I'd love to come to Christmas at your parents. Yes. Yeah. Of course!"

_Shut up, Molly. _Biting her tongue and cheek in quick turns, it takes a great effort not to explode into excited and startled rambling. She's flushed and off-guard, not having expected such an invitation from Sherlock. It's never seemed his style, really.

"Good. Dinner will be at seven, quite enough time for you to see the children on Christmas morning before you leave. I booked a ticket for you." Though he never stops playing or looks back, in the reflection of the window glass, Molly can see Sherlock's smile. It's small but bright, and his eyes are much happier than she's ever seen before. "Your presence will go a long way in earning my mother's forgiveness over dinner."

Tension snaps tight through Molly's stomach. "What are you planning, Sherlock?" she asks, wary. It _would _be just like Sherlock to plan some big, brilliant, utterly _stupid _event that will leave his parents furious before attempting to kill two birds with one stone by having her show up for the holiday _and _please his mum to pieces with her arrival. Especially if it's an indication of their current relationship, and not simply a friendship... friends that are more than friends... if it's not the complicated relationship Molly currently thinks of she and Sherlock's relationship as.

"Oh, Molly," he sighs, spinning on one heel to give her a long suffering look. "We both know I'm bound to do something utterly atrocious."

"Not if you don't speak," she teases.

Though Sherlock huffs and sticks his nose in the air, switching from the soft and sensual piece to something furiously quick and difficult, Molly catches sight of his grin before it can be wholly suppressed.

Sherlock plays carols and Molly sings along, warm and happy as she tapes paper into place, ties bows and ribbons, and sticks cheerful tags on each package, be it small or large. She's never looked forward to a holiday as much as this one, at least not since before her father passed away.

_It'll always be like this, _she decides, and for once she doesn't doubt it.

**III**

"Come on, Toby. Come out from under the bed." Lying on her stomach, Molly stretches her arm into the space between the boxes crammed under Sherlock's bed. Toby hides amid the tight passages of the cardboard labyrinth, his eyes glowing in the darkness and the only bit of him she can actually see. He growls angrily at her searching fingers, darting further into the abyss and out of sight.

"Don't bother with the cat, Molly. Mrs. Hudson has agreed to come up and watch him while we're gone."

Pushing herself out, Molly props herself up to look over her shoulder. Sherlock is leaning against the door frame, and there's mischief glittering his gaze.

"_Why _didn't you tell me that when I told _you _I was going to try and get him into his carrier?"

He shrugs. "I thought I'd like watching you wriggle around on the floor."

"_Sherlock!_" Molly's really not sure if she should be frustrated, flattered, or amused.

"My hypothesis was right: your bum does look fantastic in those jeans."

Somewhere between Molly's mock scoldings and Sherlock's teasing, they both end up on the bed. Taking advantage of his much longer limbs, he twines around Molly, until she suspects he is a vine and she won't ever be released again. Honestly, she isn't terribly upset with idea.

"I have never comprehended a situation like this before now," he announces, fingers thoughtlessly twirling and twisting locks of Molly's soft hair.

"What situation?" Opening her hand, she palms a portion of his back, relishing in the solid comfort of his body. She'll have a miserable time sleeping without him, now that she's grown used to it. Here's to a night of tossing and turning.

"I will see you tomorrow, and yet I'm quite anxious about your departure." His voice holds a deep frown. "Yet I don't understand why. It's wholly illogical."

Not bothering to resist a warm, happy smile, Molly buries it against Sherlock's shirtfront. "Love isn't logical," she finally responds, giving him a squeeze. "But don't worry, everything will be fine. Have you told your parents I'm coming?"

"You should take a later train." Sherlock wriggles down, pushing up the soft fabric of Molly's Christmas jumper so he can find the softer flesh of her stomach. Pressing his mouth to the spot just above her belly button, Molly feels a slight tug at her denims before the button pops open and the sound of a zip being draw echoes through the quiet room.

"I already have my ticket," she counters. Yet she lifts her hips when Sherlock leans back and tugs, pulling the denim down her thighs and knees and past her ankles. Her knickers went with, so she's bare below the waist. Propping herself up on one elbow, Molly watches as Sherlock rests his cheek against her thigh, his own gaze focused on the slow trek of his fingers as they move up the opposite thigh and towards neat curls.

"There's no reason you have to leave so early in the morning," he continues, brushing his thumb down the seam of her lips. Molly's breath catches and her legs automatically part further. Setting a fingertip on her clit, Sherlock rolls his eyes upwards too look at Molly. "But if you're set on taking the first train out, I suppose I ought to stop doing this, shouldn't it?"

Molly's entire body spasms as he flicks his finger back and forth.

"Later train," she babbles, reaching down to take a handful of his hair. "I'll go later. Don't stop. _Please._"

"Good." He turns his smug face into the space between her thighs, giving a pleased sort of sound at his first taste of her. "Especially since I changed your ticket in for another one."

"Slut," Molly accuses, curling a leg over his back.

"Yes," he agrees.

Despite the change in her departure time, Molly still almost misses the train.

_Missing something? _Sherlock texts not five minutes into her ride. Blinking, Molly looks around. Bag of presents and her one suitcase, she already turned in her ticket, Toby stayed at home...

_No? _she tentatively questions.

His response is a picture of her knickers dangling off one long forefinger.

Molly squeals, startling the woman next to her. Hastily she swipes the picture away, blushing violently. And, yes, fighting back a ridiculously smug grin.

_You're an arse, _she sends.

_Says the woman living with me._

Molly doesn't have a response to that. At least, not one that doesn't involve girlish giggling she has a very hard time stuffing down. The woman beside her looks Molly up and back down, before smiling widely.

"Boyfriend?" she asks.

"Yeah," Molly confirms, and spends the rest of her trip utterly dumbfounded that she just called Sherlock her boyfriend – and it's the truth. Christmas miracles, indeed.

**IV**

"You're the one that chose to go to your parents a day early," Molly points out, toeing the spigot of the bathtub. It's a massive old claw foot, and she takes advantage of the spacious bubble baths it provides every time she visits her brother's home.

"You should have _stopped _me," grumbles Sherlock. "Mum's forced me into a hideous jumper that she made. And I had to converse with Aunt Imogene."

"Oh no, conversation with your family. How _terrible._" Molly grins at the ceiling, propping her elbow against the edge of the tub. She holds the phone close enough that Sherlock can hear her, but far enough away that she _probably _won't drop it into the water. Hopefully, at least.

"Are you mocking me?"

"Perpetually."

"As I suspected." Faintly, on Sherlock's end of the line, she can hear the creak of old floorboards. She wonders where he's hiding, and if it was a favorite place to seek refuge when he was a child. "Is that water I hear?"

"Astounding deduction," she can't help but tease. "I'm in the bath."

There's a long moment of silence. Sherlock sucks in a sharp breath, and Molly can practically see his fingers pecking a nervous pattern against his thigh. "I could take the car and be there in a few hours."

"Well, I'd be out of the bath by then, I'm sure. Besides, I'll see you tomorrow."

"With my _parents. _I assure you, nothing destroys an erection like the presence of my mother."

"If she didn't, I'd be terribly worried."

"Even those words together feel wrong on the tongue. _Mother. Erection. _No, I'll not be saying that again. Make note of that Molly, in case I need to make space in my mind palace."

"Noted," she responds, a mere second before the bathroom door is hurled open. Molly shrieks, flailing and very nearly dropping her phone, as her youngest nephew Timothy barrels inside the hot, steamy room.

"Molly, what's wrong?" Sherlock is demand, voice gone sharp and worried. "Molly?"

"Sorry, Auntie!" Timothy half shouts, shedding his Iron Man pajama bottoms as he goes. "I gotta pee, though!"

"_Timothy James,_" she yelps, "what have we told you about _knocking?_"

The five year old, in the process of relieving his bladder, looks over to Molly. He surveys his aunt, head and wet shoulders above a frothing mount of bubbles. "But I _really _had to go," he insists, pulling a little pouty face that is makes Molly turn into a gullible mess. "That's lots of bubbles, Auntie. Can I get in, too?"

Molly isn't sure if it's the sound of the toilet flushing or Timothy's question, but Sherlock bursts into rolling laughter.

"Oh my peanut butter and _jelly, _are you talking to a _boy?_" Hopping forward, Hulk underwear pulled up but pajama bottoms tangled about his ankles, Timothy nearly trips and falls into the water. He appears both horrified and gleeful. "Without _clothes on?_"

Sherlock sounds as though he may be choking.

"Get out, Timothy!"

"_Daddy!_" The boy shrieks, jumping and hopping as he pulls his bottoms up, running a bit crooked as they fabric is dreadfully twisted. "_Mummy! Auntie's naked talking to a guy and they ain't married and you said only married people were naked together and she's in __**trouble**__!_"

Molly's head sinks under the water, muting the sounds of Sherlock's mirth.

**V**

The children wake Molly at four. She sends them back to bed by saying Santa will be cross if they don't sleep longer, before jamming a pillow under her head and dive bombing once against into a deep sleep. She's briefly awoken forty-five minutes later to her sister-in-law sternly, and a bit savagely, instructing, "Take your skippy little bums right back to your rooms and _stay there _until morning!" The sound of childish defeat echoes in the halls.

The first rays of dawn provoke shrieks and howls of glee. The children wake their parents, before making a quick stop at Aunt Molly's door. St. John slams inside, followed by Timothy and little Lilibet, who is barely three and really doesn't understand what's happening. She's just following along in her big brothers' footsteps.

The boys tackle the lump of blankets that is their aunt. "It's morning, it's morning!" they shout, shaking Molly while bouncing up and down. At the side of the bed Lilibet begins to whine, unable to climb into the tall bed on her own.

"Up, up! Up, _now, _please!" she demands, making grabby hands at Molly.

"Arrgh," Molly acknowledges. She hoists the little one into bed, folding her up in the blanket and closing her eyes. "Are you sure it's morning?"

"Yes, the sun's come up!" answers St. John.

"It's time for _presents!_" howls Timothy, flailing.

"Hi," coos, Lilibet, content to cup Molly's cheek in one hand while lying nose-to-nose.

"Hi, baby. Boys, are you sure it isn't a fake sun?"

They giggle. "_No, _don't be silly!"

"I'm quite sure it's only that the moon is very bright. Let's go back to sleep, to make sure."

"Get up, get up! It really _is_ morning, we promise. Right, Timmy?"

"Yeah!"

"Presents?" questions Lilibet, brown eyes huge and hopeful.

Shuffling past the open door, Stacy calls out, "I'm making coffee, Molls."

Molly blindly follows the promise of caffeine.

**VI**

"Hello!" Juggling her far-heavier-than-before-receiving-all-her-gifts suitcase and the bag containing the rest the presents she has to give out, Molly beams over the top of her scarf at Mrs. Holmes. "Happy Christmas!"

"Molly?" the older woman questions, eyes gone wide with shock.

Closing her eyes while swallowing back a groan of frustration, Molly tips her chin towards the sky. "Sherlock didn't tell you he invited me, did he?" she asks. "That _man, _I even asked him if he had – I'm so sorry, I can go, it's really no trouble."

"Oh, _Molly,_" Mrs. Holmes whispers, taking hold of her shoulders. "Did he tell you about his plan? What he was going to do?"

A frigid lump forms at the pit of Molly's stomach. "Plan?" she questions, praying he's only exploded an appliance out of boredom and not done something _terrible. _"What plan? I – I'm sorry, I don't –"

Without warning, she's jerking into a tight hug. "He'll be fine," Mrs. Holmes whispers with a strange sort violence into Molly's hair. "Don't worry, dear, he'll be _fine. _He always is. He's clever, my boy, and he'll – he'll be –"

Even without knowing exactly why, Molly is quite sure the world is dropping out from her.

**VII**

It's Will Wiggins that explains everything, pinching his still bleeding nose and shooting scared looks towards the furious Mary Watson. Not just what happened before Molly's arrival, but Sherlock's entire plan – or what he knows of it, at least.

Sherlock's last text, sent an hour ago, has far more meaning.

_John and I are stepping out; don't worry, everything is under control. _She assumed it was a spur of the moment case, a few hours of dashing around and solving crimes before Christmas dinner. Now it's clear that it was meant for this moment, when she learned of his plan and where he's gone.

"I really ought to check your blood," Wiggins bursts out, giving Mary a scared little look. "Sherlock'll be cross if I don't check on you and the fetus."

"It's a _baby, _and over your cold, dead body are you touching me, Wiggins." Mary toys, threateningly, with a cleaver. Wisely, Wiggins directs his attention elsewhere.

"Don't no one worry," he says, wiping crusted blood from his nostrils. "Sherlock's got everything all sorted out. He'll be back in no time."

"We're locking him in his room for a _year,_" Mrs. Holmes hisses, clearly bouncing between rage and worry.

"He's a grown man, Marilyn, we can't ground him."

"I gave birth to him, and so yes, I damn well _can!_"

Molly fully intends on assisting his mother, when the time comes.

**VII**

News comes two hours after Molly's arrival. She's chewed the inside of her mouth so raw it's bled, and Mrs. Holmes has crossed deserts with her pacing. The shrill jangling of the house phone breaks the uncomfortable silence. Molly suppresses an urge to lunge for it herself, instead grabbing Mary's hand in a terrified grip.

"They're fine," she whispers furiously. "They're both safe. Sherlock is always one step ahead, no matter what..."

"Mikey? What's happened? Are you boys okay?" Mrs. Holmes clings to the handset as though it is the only thing that will keep her alive, her knuckles turning white. Her husband leans close, trying to listen in.

The very second Mrs. Holmes sways, dropping a hand down to brace herself, Molly _knows. _Something terrible has happened. She leans forward, still clinging to Mary, praying – hoping – so greedy, she is, but _don't be Sherlock, please God don't be Sherlock –_

"What... do you mean?" Mrs. Holmes asks slowly, her words so painful and almost slurred that Molly can't tell if it's only shock or a stroke. "Mycroft this – can't be –"

"Marilyn?" demands Mr. Holmes, his hands trembling. When his wife slowly pushes the phone towards him, her glassy eyes empty and full of tears, he quickly takes it. "Mycroft, what's happened? Your mother –"

"He invited you to Christmas?" asks Mrs. Holmes, her voice so terribly thin and fragile. "Sherlock did? I never thought he'd find someone – but I always hoped, and I'm glad he – that he finally –" she chokes on a deep, ugly sob that comes out of the blue. Balling one hand into a fist, she presses it hard against her mouth, saying no more.

"Sherlock?" Molly whispers, trying so, so hard to be brave. "What's... happened to Sherlock?"

Mr. Holmes lowers the phone, and the electronic beep of it being turned off echoes loudly throughout the silence of the room.

"Mycroft recovered the laptop. John is on his way here. Sherlock – Sherlock shot Charles August Magnusson. He's dead. Sherlock is in custody."

Mrs. Holmes crumbles in on herself. Mr. Holmes simply sits, too stunned to move. At Molly's side, Mary gasps, a hand hovering over her mouth before she slowly looks to Molly. And Molly – Molly who so recently believed that everything was going to be _wonderful _– she simply stares ahead, unseeing, blood filling her mouth.

**VIII**

Mycroft Holmes has barely entered his parent's door before he's rushing at Molly, much like a bull in an arena. "Did you know about this?" he hisses, taking her by the upper arms. The force he uses to shake her rattles Molly's teeth, and on another day, at another time, she would be _astounded _that he would do such an out-of-character thing. "Did you know his plan and not _tell _me?"

"Mycroft!" Mr. Holmes sounds positively horrified, jolting upright at the sight of his eldest son man-handling a woman.

Molly slaps Mycroft with so much force her hand flares with pain before going static-y and numb. "Did I _know?_" she hisses, shoving the startled man backwards, with such force he nearly falls. "Did I _know_?" she shrieks, dreadfully close to snagging Mycroft's discarded umbrella and beating him about the head and shoulders with it.

"If I'd _known _about _anything, _I would have stopped him!"

"You risked your life and your freedom to fake his death –"

"I risked my life and my freedom to _save him_," she savagely corrects, teeth bared in a snarl. "I would _never _do anything to jeopardize his freedom, life, or safety!"

Breathing like winded animals and staring each other down as their crests of emotion fall, each watches as a portion of the rage fades from the other's eyes. Mycroft pulls himself together as best he can, though he's still ruffled and furious and terrified – Molly's grown so capable of reading Sherlock, that learning his brother's tells is quite easy.

"It's all your fault, you know," he says, and it takes a moment for Molly to realize he's speaking to _Mary. _Mycroft doesn't blink, doesn't twitch, doesn't so much as raise his voice. He only _stares. _"And if you believe in some kind of divine punishment once you die, know that you will _burn._"

There's not a word spoken for a long, long time.

**IX**

"Be ready in twenty minutes. A car will be waiting." Mycroft hangs up as soon as this message is given, but Molly doesn't care about his shortness. They've all been short lately, in their own ways: after two weeks of waiting, he's finally managed to arrange the one thing she's asked for the whole time.

Molly goes outside immediately, jangling her keys in one hand and bouncing on her heels as she waits for the car. Passersby, people entering and leaving Speedy's, they give her strange glances. Who's this mad woman standing on the doorstep of a flat, jingling her keys and looking around so anxiously? They could stop and take pictures for all she cares.

The car arrives early. It's a sleek black thing, like a million other town cars. Molly has a door open before it's come to a full stop. The driver gives her a short, startled look via the reviewer mirror before lowering his gaze, shifting the car back into gear and pulling away from the curb one more.

The drive takes nearly an hour, and the house they arrive at is large, old, and well maintained. Outside the city, it has a lush green lawn and white chat drive. It seems peaceful and picturesque. Molly isn't fooled, not for one second. A beautiful prison is still a prison.

A burly man in stiffly starched uniform opens the door for her. "Ma'am," he greets, nodding once. "Please follow me."

She goes through two metal detectors, and before security is done searching her she fears there'll be a cavity search. Mycroft watches from a shadowy corner, keeping himself far out of the way of the sunlight spilling through the large windows of what was once simply a large parlor.

"You've got an hour," he says, the grip on his brolly far too tight. "Be grateful for it."

He takes her to a set of doors on the third story. They're painted white and have gilt work, but to one side is a key box. Mycroft presses a quick series of numbers before sliding an identification card, and Molly can hear the hiss and release of locks turning and hydraulics releasing. One handle is turned, and Mycroft nods once before opening the door and standing back.

The room is large and lush. A bed, a writing desk, a television, a seating area and table. There are books and board games and a microscope. Most importantly, there is Sherlock, seated in front of the fire place. His back is to Molly, and so all he hears are footsteps eaten by the thick carpeting and the sound of the door shutting, and locking, once more.

"Not today, Mycroft." He sounds tired, and his voice is hoarse.

"I'm not Mycroft."

Sherlock bolts upright so quickly he nearly turns the chair over. Gripping the back of it, to keep it upright or maybe, just _maybe _because he needs something to brace himself on, he _stares_ at Molly. It seems as though he's drinking her in, looking up and down and back again, soaking in every detail and picking them apart, deducing the details of their time apart.

His throat works, hard. The first time he opens mouth nothing comes out, though he's more successful on the second. "It seems I've been misinformed."

Molly speaks much more steadily than she feels. "How so?"

"Mycroft said you were unwilling to see me."

It takes a great deal of restraint not to pound the doors down so she can scream at Mycroft Holmes until his ear drums burst. He told Sherlock she refused to see him? Was it a punishment, or was he simply too vain or cowardly to say, "I don't think I can arrange such a thing." Molly can comprehend not getting Sherlock's hopes up, but give him such a terrible lie...

"You should've known that wasn't true." She wants to run to him, to hold him close and kiss him so deeply she swallows his exhales and takes a bit of Sherlock's spirit inside. She wants to slap him so hard his neck breaks, because how could he be so goddamn _unselfish? _Save Mary and John and the baby, but _what about them? _What about their future, however unplanned and nebulous as it may have been?

"John and Mary told me. Everything." Twisting her fingers together, Molly looks down. It was hard to take in, the thought of Mary as an assassin. Madness, really. But Molly believes it because deep in her bones she knows it's true, has known there was something off about the beautiful, kind, cheerful woman from the very first moment they met. It's in the way she looks at the world and the people in, how sometimes she seems to not see strangers but shadows and enemies. There's a darkness that comes into Mary Watson's eyes, at times, and though Molly spent quite a long time ignoring it, there's no possible way she can now.

"Unexpected." Sherlock pushes his hands into his pockets. He's wearing a shirt and slacks under his robe, clothes Mycroft sent for and Molly packed. A man with blank eyes and broad shoulders had tried to do it, gone into the bedroom and opened the drawers. God above, but Molly had gone half-mad, shrieking at him to get his hands off Sherlock's things.

"I'll do it!" she'd insisted, shoving that much larger body out of the bedroom. Toby was hissing and yowling, clearly upset by the commotion. "Get out, _get out!_"

"Let her," Mycroft had ordered from the front room. No more argument was made, and Molly packed a large leather case full of Sherlock's things, keeping everything neatly folded and his socks organized the way he likes.

Now she says, accusingly, "She _shot_ you."

A faint smile, one shoulder lifting in a weak shrug. "I tricked her into admitting her past to her husband. I suppose it's fair."

"You almost died, Sherlock. And now – now you've –" She can't say it, hasn't been able to even once. Sherlock is a murderer. Sherlock has committed a murder. A man was killed, and Sherlock pulled the trigger, _knowing _what he was doing and in no way protecting his own life.

_Saving Mary, John, and the baby, _that pleading voice inside her whispers over and over again. _Saving them. Saving his friends._

The silence stretches, heavy and thick. Molly watches Sherlock's throat work, can see thoughts flickering rapidly behind his eyes. "Since Mycroft said you wouldn't... I hadn't thought of anything to say to you."

"An apology would be a lovely start." The crack in her voice is small, but it traces back to her soul, where it becomes a gaping chasm. It's an endless void of darkness and lost hope, a place where dreams and love go to die. Molly wants to go into it, for the very first time in her life, and almost hates Sherlock for it as much as she hates herself.

"Molly Hooper, I am so terribly sorry for the pain I've caused you. _All _of it, from the very beginning." Adam's apple bobbing tellingly, Sherlock looks away. He draws in a slow breath, seemingly seeking composure. "I never meant to hurt you. Not even once."

He's being honest, more open than ever. It's terrifying. Molly wants half-truths and outright lies, craves solid ground and normality. "What's going to happen?" Her eyes burn, and she swallows, swallows, swallows, trying to suck the tears back into her body. But they stay, blurring her vision, changing Sherlock into an indistinct shape.

This question finally provokes Sherlock into movement. Slowly he walks across the room, watching Molly as though looking for any sign that she doesn't want him close, doesn't want to be touched. When none comes he reaches out, pulls her against his body with a trembling exhale. One large hand runs over her hair and down her back, and through her clothing Molly can feel how it trembles.

"Answer me truthfully," he finally breathes, pressing his other hand to her throat. His fingers are on her pulse, waiting to see if he can catch the jump and race of a lie. "Please. Do you want a truth or a lie?"

"You've never given me a choice before," she tries to joke. It falls flat, of course, and Molly hides her face in his chest. He smells the same, feels the same, and just for a _second _she can pretend it's an awful dream she's just left. They're in Baker Street, waiting for a case or distraction, for Molly's shift to start or Mrs. Hudson to call them down for dinner.

"Tell me," he repeats, two fingers still pressed against her jugular.

A truth or a lie. She wants a lie, wants it _desperately, _because she can't stand the thought of losing him and from all the silences and words left unspoken by Mycroft... Molly knows the worst is coming to pass. The very, very worst. But how can she go on, never knowing what's happened to Sherlock? Never knowing if he's dead or alive, in pain or ill or in danger?

"Both," she finally whispers, hooking a finger through his belt loop and hanging on tightly. "Tell me both."

A long pause. Molly listens to Sherlock's heart, a steady rhythm that is more precious than ever in this moment.

"I'm too useful for death and no prison can hold me. Mycroft has convinced certain peoples that I will be of better use to them out of the country. I'll be working undercover, and once the job is finished I'll be allowed to return."

Molly shudders, clinging to his words. They're too sweet, too hopeful, even spoken in the rapid and disinterested tone Sherlock uses. It's the lie.

"And?" she prompts, almost losing her breath from the fear.

"I'm being sent out of the country, just as I said. But Mycroft has assured me that the work I'm going to be doing – the government and people I will be dealing with... I'll last six months, at the most."

Sherlock has to hold her up, as Molly's knees have gone to jelly and spots appear in front of her eyes. There's static in her fingers and toes, an elephant sitting on her lungs. A cataclysm has just occurred, has utterly and completely destroyed Molly, and she has no defenses left, no strength to summon up.

"Oh God," she whispers, clinging blindly. Her knees are on the floor, and then she's on her back. Sherlock is over her, around her, blocking out the room, the sun, the future. "No. No, no, no, no – no, _Sherlock,_ please, please don't – don't leave me –"

His limbs and weight hold Molly together when it feels as though she's being torn apart, bearing her down into the thick carpet. "It's the lie," he whispers hoarsely, shoulders shivering. "Don't do this – not because of me, Molly –"

She weeps, and thinks Sherlock does too. Somehow, and she isn't sure how as she didn't intend for it to happen and is fairly certain Sherlock didn't either, their mouths meet. There is no kiss, not at first, only an accidental brush and the taste of tears before desperation explodes into a furious sort of lust. She's ripping, tearing at his shirt buttons, pulling his hair, crying and gasping as he battles with her trousers.

"There's cameras," he gasps out, jumping when Molly digs her blunt nails into the skin above his ribs, trying to leave marks. She _needs_ this, needs to scratch and bite and leave bits of herself all over him.

"Let them watch," she answers, pushing and wriggling until Sherlock's on his back and she's straddling him. "Let them see. I don't care." Her blouse is pulled over her head and tossed away, and her bra follows. Sherlock is making hungry sounds, his pupils blown wide and scared as he traces curves and lines he's come to know so well.

"The first time I saw you, I almost walked out of St. Bart's because I knew you would be too distracting. I promised myself I'd keep you at arm's length, no matter what – I thought I couldn't afford attachments – I truly am spectacularly ignorant." His smirk is sad and self-loathing, and he leaves his shirt and robe on the floor as he rolls them once more. The carpet is soft against Molly's bare back, and Sherlock's fingers pushing under her waistband are as painful as they are desperately wanted.

"I wanted to have you on a storage gurney," he admits into her breasts, scraping his teeth over the pale flesh until it glows red and livid. He sucks a mark into being, and then another, and another, on his knees to allow Molly to tackle his trousers. "I went into rehab thinking, _if I'm clean she'll let me. _Sometimes it was the only reason I stayed, why I didn't give into the withdrawal and leave, because you told me you didn't want me when I was high."

He remembers. Molly moans, not because they're both naked and he's sliding down her body, hooking his arms under and around her thighs as he roughly suckles love bites onto her stomach and hips; this is not a sound of pleasure, but of agony. _He remembers. _All this wasted time, and there's so precious little _left..._

"Why?" she mourns, the fingers of one hand caught in the carpet while the other knots in his hair. "Why did you – oh God, _Sherlock_ – why –"

Sherlock worships her with lips and tongue and teeth. It's agonizing and beautiful and she's going to die, it's going to kill her, knowing this is the last time, the very last time –

When he finally rises above her, chin and cheeks shimmering with wetness, he doesn't need to coax her legs to wrap around his hips. "I'm a coward," he admits with a hand between their bodies. He pushes inside, makes Molly yowl and cry and cling to his arms and shoulders. "I'm a useless, arrogant coward, and I didn't want be hurt – I didn't want to hurt _you_, either – I break everything, Molly, everything, and now I'm going to break you –"

He sits back, and Molly goes with him. They're wound around each other, Molly in his lap and their bodies as close as they can possibly be. It is sex, yes, there's no doubt; but it is also so much more. It is anger and sorrow, a goodbye and a plea for it _not _to be the end. Molly is a raw, bared nerve, pulsing and throbbing with each flaring emotion and physical pleasure.

"I love you," she keeps repeating, holding his precious face between her palms and _forcing _him to look at her, to see all the truths. "I love you, I love you, I've always loved you –"

When he kisses her, it seems as though he's swallowing her words, tucking them inside to keep in a secret place.

It ends in near-violence and tears, exactly as it began. They remain together, sweating and panting, Molly with her forehead on his shoulder as she sobs as she hasn't since her father's death. In a way it's much worse than losing her father, as some realistic part of her had always _known _she would one day lose her parents and become an orphan. His diagnosis gave her time to process, to ease her into the grief and reality. But this? This is too sudden, too painful.

It's not _only _the loss of Sherlock, which is of such a magnitude that Molly will never be able to properly express it. It is also the loss of their _future, _of dreams like soap bubbles, fragile and short lived. There might have been a child, one day, or maybe a few. There might have been a wedding. They might have grown old together: Molly thinks he'd look dashing with gray hair, like his father. There could have been arguments and misunderstandings, silent moments of understanding and laughter.

"I love you," he whispers, and it's in the voice of a dead man that knows he has no further chances left. "I don't want you to ever think I didn't."

There's an en suite, of course, and they go into a quick hot shower. Sherlock's seed trickles down Molly's thighs, is washed away, and it hurts worse than any wound she's ever received. He washes her with touches that are reverent, his gaze somehow both far-away and focused entirely on Molly. After, they go back into the main room in towels, where Molly watches listlessly as he picks through her scattered clothing.

"It seems you'll need replacements." There are shadows under his eyes, and his empty smile dies a quick death. In his hands are a torn jumper, ripped trousers, a bra with a popped strap. Molly swallows hard, nodding, unable to speak.

Sherlock pulls out a pair of sweat pants that are much too long for Molly. He shrugs with an apologetic air, holding them out. "My clothes will have to do."

"I'm going with you," Molly announces, watching Sherlock's eyes grow round and shocked. "I'm not leaving until you do."

"_No,_" he snaps, so harshly that once it could have made Molly flee the lab in tears. Now she doesn't even flinch. "There's no way –"

"I'm going with you, or I'll follow. If you have help, we can figure something out. We can get you_ out._"

"Molly..."

"I'm not sending you off to get killed, all alone and with _no _chance of survival! I'm not going to let it happen like this!"

The sound of Sherlock's fist slamming into the wood of the wardrobe is shocking and, yes, even scary. Molly flinches backwards, looking rapidly between his face gone scarlet in fury and his balled up fist. She's never seen him lose his temper so completely that he's resorted to physical violence, and the shock of it is like ice water being poured over her head.

"You're going to live," he snarls, as viciously as he might hurl insults. "Do you understand me, Molly Hooper? You're going to _live. _You're going to stay here and take care of John, Mary, and the baby; they'll need you. And you'll never tell them. _Never. _They can never know."

Tears return, choking and blinding her. This man. This complicated, brilliant, heart-breaking man. It's never been that he couldn't love, but only that he loves so completely and wholly that he always knew it had the capacity to devastate him. How clearly Molly understands him, now, and all the years he spent pushing away from her.

Quietly she accepts the sweatpants, which are far too big. She rolls them several times at the waistband to keep them up, and then pulls on a soft, long sleeved shirt Sherlock hands her. He folds the cuffs up, allowing her the use of her hands. Meditatively, he traces each of her fingers with his own, perhaps memorizing the placement of scalpel callouses and the ridges of her knuckles.

The end comes all too soon. A knock, a pause, and the sound of locks unlatching as alarms are silently, briefly, kicked off, and then the door opens. A stocky man with a ruddy face and lowered eyes stands in the doorway. "Miss, Hooper, I'm afraid your time is up."

She yearns to scream and rail and _fight. _Instead she sucks it back, forces it down so far that maybe she'll never have to face it again. Sherlock doesn't need her to break apart, to fight any further against the inevitable: he needs her to be strong, and she _will _be. She must.

Jaw tight and nostrils flaring, Sherlock touches her face. It's a faint, tentative thing at first: Molly cups her hand over the back of his, pressing her cheek into his palm.

He whispers, "Thank you," and Molly's heart shatters all over again. "For... for everything."

"What do you need me to say?"

Sherlock draws her close, kisses her so softly, so _sweetly_ that the battle against her tears is lost once more. "Say 'I love you, Sherlock,'" he murmurs fingers sliding through her damp hair. "And smile."

Closing her eyes, choking on so many other words and howls and sobs, Molly focuses on anything but _this. _She thinks of Sherlock and Toby playing in Baker Street, of violin music at four in the morning and body parts in the fridge; of long, silent hours in the lab and the companionship they shared during their work together. Each treasured memory is pulled up, until Molly is full of the very best of Sherlock and their time together. It's only then that she opens her eyes, and smiles as gently and lovingly and _truly _as she can possibly manage. "I love you, Sherlock," she vows, and hopes he understands how _deeply _she means those word.

The kiss he presses to her forehead is damp and gentle, and Molly balls her hands into fists to keep from clutching at him when she feels the tears that accompany it. Before she'd thought she had no strength left, but for Sherlock she'll do her best to move mountains: summoning up a courage born simply of a desire to not see him hurt any further, Molly takes his hand, pressing a kiss to his fingers before she pulls away.

Every fiber and atom of her being shrieks and howls at the _wrongness_ of this moment, and she wavers. How can she leave him? How can she possibly walk away knowing he's going to leave and never come home? That he's going to die alone, in a distant country, with a whole life left unlived?

One step. Now two. Another, another; slow, at first, then slightly faster. Everything blurs together, and the air is suddenly full of her gasps as she tries valiantly to suck her tears back. The man at the door, with his buzz cut and fumbling hands, he's staring at his boots and looking as though he'd rather be _anywhere_ else.

One foot is out of the door when Sherlock says, in a small, choked voice, "I love you, too, Molly."

There's a body at her back, keeping her from rushing back inside. When Molly whips around, beyond the solider turned prison guard's arm she catches her last view of Sherlock. He stands in afternoon sunlight, curls wild about his head, a dark halo where the light catches them, his hands limp at his sides. She's never seen him look so scared or vulnerable, and she never will again.

The door shuts and the locks automatically engage. So when Molly shoves the man away, he steps back, allowing her to press her hands and forehead against the door. She doesn't shout or scream, only presses her face against the wood that no doubt covers heavy steel, gasping softly as her soul is irreparably wounded.

The touch of a hand on her back shocks Molly into lifting her head, turning her tear-streaked face up to meet Mycroft's pitying gaze. There's understanding there, and a fellowship: for all his downfalls, this man has spent a lifetime _loving _his precious little brother, and now it is his duty to send him to his death. Molly hates him and pities him in equal measure.

"Come." He draws her away. Despite his shunning of human touch, he presses a hand to her back, as though worried she may fall. Molly doesn't blame him – she's staggering like a drunk.

On the ground floor entry, there's a flood of guardsmen and women. Boot heels snap together as Molly comes close, shoulders becoming rigid as hands snap to their foreheads. For a moment she thinks it's for Mycroft, right up until he gives a small noise of faint shock, and she understands that this is for _her. _Her last moments with Sherlock were viewed, every last intimate moment, and here are the voyeurs. Saluting her, offering all the comfort and support they possibly can.

They remain rigid as she passes by, nodding to them all as she gives shivery, choked off whimpers.

Mycroft opens the door of the waiting car. "I would do anything to change this," he tells her, his gaze directed up high. Molly follows it, and sees a curtain dropping back into place. Though she can't see him, she knows it's Sherlock standing behind bullet proof and mesh reinforced glass, watching.

Molly leaves without ever responding.

**X**

Molly puts her flat on the market, places the only furniture she cares to keep into storage, and finalizes her move into 211B. Mrs. Hudson is cheerful about it, teasing Molly and offering advice for living with a man. She seems to chalk Molly's forced cheer and general despondency up to missing Sherlock, who as far as she knows has been called away by Mycroft for secret work for the government.

"Bit likes James Bond, don't you think?" she asks while dusting. "Bet he's off insulting a dictator or some such. Silly boy."

It's difficult, but Molly does everything in her power to appear completely normal at work. She sings to herself and greets everyone with a smile, forces pep into her voice and energy into her movements. It bleeds over into her interactions with people, especially with John and Mary. There's a certain hesitation between them, now that Molly knows the truth, especially on Mary's part: she seems to be constantly waiting for Molly to lash out and banish the other woman from her life when they're together.

Molly wants to, but not for the reason Mary believes. It because Sherlock sacrificed his own life to save her and John's happiness,. There's something bitter and ugly that's taken root in Molly, a worm burrowed into the core of an apple, and she has no idea how to remove it... or if she even wants to.

At home she sleeps in Sherlock's bed, between his sheets, in his clothes. She weeps and mourns and struggles to find a reason to continue going on.

**XI**

Upon receiving three days off in a row, Molly goes home, crawls into bed, and stays there. Toby wanders the flat, crying for Sherlock; Molly cries with him. In between those moments he stays close to her, seeking comfort as much as he gives it.

Halfway through the second day, Molly is rudely awakened by the curtains being pushed open and sunlight invading her cave. Hissing and blinking, she bolts upright, dislodging a yowling Toby. Mycroft stands in front of the window, impeccably dressed as ever. In his hand is a large, rather thick envelope, the sort reserved for paperwork and important documents.

Whatever he deduces from her appearance and surroundings, he wisely keeps them to himself. "Sherlock wouldn't want you to shut yourself away, Miss Hooper."

The glare she gives him is cold and furious. What right does he have to tell her what Sherlock would want? He might be Sherlock's brother, but Mycroft understood him the least.

"We have business to discuss. Don't keep me waiting."

Molly lies back down, just to be an arse. But Toby's gone and the sun is too bright (she lives in _London, _would it be too much to ask for some gloom?), and she's curious what business she and Mycroft could possibly share. She suspects it has to with Sherlock, and is drawn to it much like a moth to a killing flame.

She brushes her teeth and uses mouthwash, puts on Sherlock's blue robe and ties it shut, but otherwise she makes no effort with her appearance. Mycroft is in the kitchen, which is too quiet and clean in Sherlock's absence, setting up a tea tray.

"I suppose you haven't been eating?" he questions, shooting her a stern look of disapproval. Molly bites her tongue to keep from sticking it out. "Sit." He pours and passes her a cup and saucer, as well as a sandwich. Against her will, Molly's stomach rumbles, and she hasn't got the will power to refuse it.

Taking a seat across the table from her, Mycroft sips his tea and seems wholly content to watch Molly eat. It's only once the sandwich is half gone that he sets his cup down, pushing the envelope across the table. She eyes it warily, looking between the heavy yellow paper and Sherlock's brother.

"He asked me to tidy up his affairs. This is a part of it." A pitiful explanation that avoids telling her what this is all about. Damn the Holmes men and their love of dramatics.

Opening it, Molly pulls out a sheaf of paperwork. She begins to scan over it, brow knitting in a tight frown as between the exhaustive legal jargon, a picture begins to emerge. Her chest aches as though she's received a hard blow.

"When Sherlock became addicted, his trust fund was frozen. After, he was allowed to draw out only a month stipend, unless he could provide a valid reason for needing a larger sum. There is also the matter of his future inheritance, to be received when our parents are deceased." As Mycroft speaks he taps his fingers against the table top, a painfully familiar pattern.

"He didn't," she whispers, lips and tongue gone numb.

"As it clearly states, he most certainly has. He was very clear, Miss Hooper. Aside from a smaller portion to be given to the Watsons, all of his funds and worldly goods are to be bestowed upon you in the eventuality of his death. With a notable inclusion that should he be missing for a year, his estate is to be handled to the specifications of his will." Mycroft's gaze is hooded. "You will not be a billionaire, Miss Hooper, but my brother has seen fit to have you well taken care of. You will certainly never lack or want for anything."

She's shaking so badly that she drops the papers, and doesn't try to pick them back up. It's impossible to speak at the moment, so she cradles her tea cup between two hands – hoping she doesn't drop it, it's Sherlock's favorite set – gulping down the milky tea and wishing it had whiskey in it. She needs something stronger to brace her nerves and give her courage.

"I don't want it," she finally manages to spit out, shaking her head. "I don't _need _– give it to John. It wouldn't feel right, taking his money after he..." She can't say. _After he dies. _It's too cruel, too painful. It makes their situation far too real.

"This is a dying man's last wish, Miss Hooper. Are you truly going to throw it back at him?" Mycroft's words are spoken mildly, while neither his eyes nor expression give any clue to his true feelings on the subject.

Molly recoils, hurt and startled. She hadn't thought of it like that, only seen it is as a profit from the death of her love. Put in those terms, there's no possible way she could reject Sherlock's final attempt to see her unharmed and taken care of. "I didn't think," she admits, rubbing a hand over her face. "Of course I'll take it. I just – I just don't want – I don't _care _about money. I'd rather have him." Her voice cracks, thin ice that covers the wellspring of her grief.

"A sentiment I fully return." For the first time, Mycroft appears uncomfortable. There's a deep line between his eyebrows, and he's shifting in awkwardly in his seat. "This is quite personal, but I'd like to know – is there any chance of a child? After your, ah, parting with Sherlock, I had thought, perhaps..."

Molly's hands move to her stomach of their own will. They'd used no protection, and she hasn't taken birth control in ages. It made her sick, terribly so, and the mood swings and tears, nightmares and cold sweats simply weren't worth it. Still, the thought of a pregnancy never once entered her mind until Mycroft brought it up.

"I don't know," she admits, squeezing her eyes shut as she imagines the joy of having one last piece of Sherlock. Boy or girl; who it most resembles or takes after; nothing but its health and the knowledge that it's a child born from _love _matters to Molly. "I – I didn't think –"

"Research indicates it's too early to tell, anyway. We'll wait a few more weeks, then I'll have you set up with a doctor for tests. Mother and Father would be overjoyed, and I... I would quite like to have some part of him..." Mycroft trails off, shoulders drooping as he places a hand over his eyes. Molly allows him time and silence to recover, aware – even in the depths of her despairing grief – that she is not the only one suffering.

After the paperwork has been signed and initialed in all the correct places, Molly returns it to the envelope and hands it back to Mycroft. "Has he... left, yet?"

The answer she's given is, "Two days."

"Can I – please, can I see him off, I –"

"No. He doesn't want you there." The words hurt, jagged and sharp as a serrated knife. "He couldn't bear another parting from you, Molly Hooper. The last changed him, he's – he's resigned."

"I don't want him resigned!" she whispers fiercely. "I want him to fight!"

Smiling sorrowfully, Mycroft unfurls his hands. "Sherlock will always fight. It is only that he now knows he cannot always win."

**XII**

On the day of Sherlock's final departure, Molly returns to work. She forces a sickening, disgusting amount of cheer into her face and words and interactions. Mike gives her probing looks across the lab, but asks no questions, for which she's thankful: though she tries to tone down the manic, almost hysterical force of her false cheer, Molly finds herself unable to do so. It's astounding, the way grief affects the mind and body.

Mary calls. "We're going to see Sherlock off, thought you might want a ride along. I know Mr. Uppity-Up Holmes said no one else could come, but he can go bugger himself."

Squeezing her eyes shut, Molly forces herself to laugh. "Oh, we've already said our goodbyes! Privately. I told Sherlock I wouldn't come, he gets uncomfortable when I cry. I wouldn't be able to keep myself from it."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, but thanks. I appreciate the offer."

Molly tosses herself into her work. Her mind is racing, fighting at every chance to escape the confines of business and hurl into the abyss of knowledge. She wonders what Sherlock is feeling and thinking right now, and where he is. If he regrets asking her not to be there, and if he's thinking of her.

Carrying a tray of utensils into the sterilization room, Molly's mind has traveled to the thought of a child. One last piece, a Holmes to carry on the great joy Sherlock brought her. (Oh yes, there was pain, but it's far outweighed by the happiness.) There's a smile on her mouth, equal parts bittersweet and hopeful, when she enters the sterilization room.

Standing in an immaculate suit, hands in his pockets and dark eyes boring into her, is James Moriarty. The tray clatters to the floor, smaller utensils scatter and rebounding around her feet as he gives her a wide, bright smile full of wet white teeth and insanity. "Did you miss me, Molls?"

Sherlock Holmes is flying away to his death, and Moriarty has returned. There is no help coming, no savior on the horizon. It's only Molly and a madman, the bastard that used her to get close to Sherlock and tried to utterly destroy him. He's stepping forward, and she tries to run, to dart away, but he's got her by the hair and one arm, and there's no escaping. He kicks a scalpel out of the way, moving so close that there is little space between them.

"You've been naughty," he sing-songs, tutting mockingly. "And Sherlock's anointed his queen. Silly Sherlock, getting so very attached to his pets. Though I can hardly blame him – I saw the video from your last encounter with him, _hot _stuff. It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?"

Between one breath and the next, Molly makes her decision: if she's going to die, she's going to do so as fiercely as possible. She slaps Moriarty hard, so hard he stumbles and laughs, though unfortunately his hold on her doesn't lessen even in a little.

"Oh, Molls, already? I thought I'd have to eat you up to get you hot enough to play rough."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Naughty, naughty – I'd much rather be fucking you." He's close, too close, all menace and horrible intent. "I've got so much to learn from you, Molly. What makes you _tick. _You're not just his queen, you're the angel. His angel... but since he's gone, I guess that makes you _mine!_" Delight lights up his face, and Molly knows the true meaning of terror.

**XIII**

On a private landing strip outside of London, the plane carrying Sherlock homes lands before it ever really had a chance to leave. There is a sickening certainty in his gut which says this: Molly Hooper isn't safe, and every moment he's away from her puts her more and more at risk.

"Call Lestrade, send him and the rest of the Yard to St. Bart's." He's barking this order while disembarking the plane, taking the steps three at a time until his feet are back on the ground and he's running to a car. "Hurry! Now!"

"Sherlock?" questions John, who is flown past without so much as a glance.

"Call him _now!_" Jerking the car door open, Sherlock jumps inside the vehicle, next this brother. "He's gone after her," John and Mary can no doubt hear him telling Mycroft.

"Assuredly," the man behind the government answers mildly, though there is a particular gleam in his eye that suggests something destructive is about to occur. "Preparations were made for such an occasion."

There aren't enough preparations in the world to ease Sherlock, not now. Not until he's got her safe and sound at his side, and as far away from Moriarty or any of his surviving minions as possible.

"There's an East wind coming," he mutters darkly, brilliant mind furiously running over the logistics and possibilities. "Hang on, Molly."

She's saved him twice, now. It's his turn, and Sherlock can only hope he doesn't fail.

* * *

**...Did I mention there will be a sequel? *dodges rotten fruit***


End file.
